"Jerking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... something was: moreover, contrary to former habits of an ostentatious boldness, he seemed meekly to shrink from observation: and, as he piously acquiesced in the annoyance, would observe that his unpleasant jerking was "a little matter after all, and that, no doubt, the will ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... medical students who were curious, the pretended movements of her unborn child. She was repeatedly presented to the medical classes in the city. No pregnancy existed, as was revealed by a post-mortem examination. She imposed upon the credulous by the habit she had acquired of jerking her muscles at pleasure, and thus closely simulating the movements ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... a nasal tone, came from the steps at his back. He started up, jerking sidewise to get out of reach of the hands that belonged to the voice, and clutching his book to him. But as he faced the speaker, who was peering down at him from the top of the steps, wonder took ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... revealing him humiliatingly to himself as a physical incompetent. He had dismissed Buck Klinker as a faintly amusing brother to the ox, and now Buck Klinker was giving him valuable advice about his editorial work, to say nothing of jerking him by the ears toward physical competency. He had thought to honor the Post by contributing of his wisdom to it, and the Post had replied by contemptuously kicking him out. He had laughed at Colonel Cowles's editorials, and now he was staying out of ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... seized with a fit of laughter that shook his outstretched arm, imparted the most savage look to his face, and set his legs jerking under his body like the legs of a dancing doll. His enemy was growing weaker before his eyes. Don Luis's fingers, which had first gripped the roots of the grass, were now vainly clutching the stones of ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... in a few minutes. He had a confused notion of feeling a slight jerking motion, and of hearing Hiram say, "There, she is anchored"; but he did not suffer this to rouse him, and, dropping off, slept soundly till morning. At the first stir Hiram made he ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... and for the next five minutes the fish was tearing about here and there in the water far below where we stood, and jerking our arms and shoulders till they ached. Now it would go off at right angles, now directly in the ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... Arabic. It was a tongue unknown to them all and they chose to consider it Italian. Moreover, one Ashton Hanks, a member of the Chicago board of trade, at the hotel for the season, had said to the menagerie, jerking his thumb interrogatively at me, as I was busied in the background with the camel, 'Italiano? Italiano?' To which Baldissano replied, 'Si, signor,' meaning 'yes,' thinking of course that Hanks meant him. 'Boss? Padrone?' said Hanks again, and again ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... few minutes would plunge forward almost spasmodically, throwing one foot back in a way leading you to expect that he would the next moment precipitate himself headlong down upon the desks of the students. Twirling his pen, occasional spitting, jerking his foot backward, taken with his dress, gave him a most eccentric appearance in the lecture room. Meeting him upon the street, with his sister, you never would have suspected that such a strange looking being could be Neander. He formerly had two sisters, but a few years ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... sympathy from the police, Brisley," he declared. "That one's almost as bad as him," jerking his thumb in ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... is leading a baboon by a string around the neck, and the other is carrying a gourd drum. Reaching me, the man with the baboon commences making the most ludicrous grimaces and causes the baboon to caper wildly about by jerking the string, while the drummer proceeds to belabor the head of his drum, apparently with the single object of extracting as much noise from it as possible. Putting my fingers to my ears I turn away; ten minutes afterward I observe another similar combination making a bee-line ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... "consequences" of one gentleman sneezing are the following: he jerks the arm of the lady next him, the result being that she pours her cup of scalding hot tea over the knees of her neighbour, a testy old gentleman, who in his fright and pain raises his arms, jerking off with his cane the wig of a person standing at the back of his chair, who in the attempt to save his wig upsets his own cup and saucer upon the pate of his antagonist Another guest, with his mouth full of tea, witnessing this absurd contretemps is unable to restrain his laughter, the result ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... ear tired of it, and then creeping back upon the senses again, was this trombone note of the big machine. The floor never felt steady and quiet beneath one's feet, but quivered and jarred. It was a confusing, unsteady place, and enough to send anyone's thoughts jerking into odd zigzags. And for three months, while the big strike of the engineers was in progress, Holroyd, who was a blackleg, and Azuma-zi, who was a mere black, were never out of the stir and eddy of it, but slept and fed in the little wooden shanty between the ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... have it," he said. "That's how I held the little devil. Now grip hard and try to crush the pencils and you'll have something of the same sensation as I had. Holding it thus, I could feel its head jerking this way and that, violently, and its tail, long and lithe, lashing at my wrist. The little claws were trying to tear, but they were evidently softish. I could hear, or thought I could, the snap of its little jaws. It was about the nastiest sensation ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... that was without its fruition. And it was this latter mood that fell on her, swift and entire, when, looking out from her window a little before dinner-time, she saw suddenly his hat, and Cecily's head, jerking up the steep path that ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... would startle him by a queer kind of puffing sound. She would not leave her nest like most birds, but really tried to blow or scare the intruder away; and after repeated experiments I could hardly refrain from jerking my head back when that little explosion of sound came up from the dark interior. One night, when incubation was about half finished, the nest was harried. A slight trace of hair or fur at the entrance led me to infer that some small animal was ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... in one of the wildest jigs that ever was seen, twisting, turning, and jerking himself in all directions; dancing with his hands, dancing with his body, dancing with his knees, dancing with his feet; describing the most fearful contortions and extravagant evolutions; throwing himself into incredible attitudes; ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... mouse is placed on the branches of a tuft of thyme. By dint of jerking, shaking and tugging at the body, the Burying-beetles succeed in extricating it from the ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... fists, and would have struck Prescott down from behind, but Wadleigh, who was a big and powerful fellow, caught Bayliss by his left arm, jerking him back. ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... next two weeks, Colin found himself again fast to a tuna, but was unable to land any of the three. His first he lost by jerking too quickly at the strike. The second walked away with his entire six hundred feet of line at the first rush, and probably was a fish beyond the rod and reel capacity, and the third broke the line suddenly in some unexplained way, possibly, the boatman said, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... head boss, jerking him out of his berth, stirring his cramped joints to another dawn of drudgery—two hours of work and two of waiting before the daily eight-o'clock insult called breakfast. He tugged on his shoes, marveling ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... Genevieve busied herself with her own toilet, jerking hooks and ribbons into place with unnecessary force; then she turned despairingly to Mrs. Kennedy, ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... inquirer, jerking his flies off the water, and throwing again with a heavy, sullen splash, and frightening ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... to the jerking movement of my hand every time I try to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience which I had. Just imagine, this daughter of mine was ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... body was vibrating, traversed by a jerking and a trembling; he got up and approached the window, ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... pugilist's stiff arm movement to the throat. Then the end came. Mr. McGowan brought forward his head and shoulders with his usual lightning-like swiftness in order to draw a lead before the other was prepared for it, and at the same time he accompanied the movement with a quick jerking back of his left hand as though suddenly changing his mind. The city man did the rest. He halted. Mr. McGowan stepped to the left just as the other delivered his spent blow, and with the added weight of his moving body landed his right glove against the stranger's ear. This was ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... of stone walls, without crying babies and scolding wives clattering around. This heat every summer costs us thousands of dollars in delays, from wear and tear and extra strain—tempers and nerves giving out, men getting frantic and jerking things. I believe it breeds a form of acute mania when it keeps on ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... leaning on his mother's breast, and making more noise with his heart and lungs than he could have done if he had been hanged, he resolved, after due deliberation, to let the "hanging drop" have its own way in sticking on the top of his cheek, and determined not to fall for all his jerking. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... cautiously and accurately. Every turn is hauled taut, taking care that it is in its right place. And, finally, the lashing is pointed in such a way that one would do best to use a knife or an axe if it has to be undone again; there is no danger of jerking it out with the fingers. A sledge journey of the kind we had before us is a serious undertaking, and the work has ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... against four,—isn't it funny?" cried Vanessa, jerking Sir Joseph's arm in which hers was locked. "Of course the Tribes are on our side too, but ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... one side, jerking his thumb at Silas Blackburn. The coat and hat slipped from Doctor Groom's hand. His mouth opened. His great body crept slowly back until the shoulders rested against the wall. He placed the palms of his hands against the wall as if to push ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... vessel, and bending over the well, he began to drink. His long beard had fallen into the water, and when he had slaked his thirst and attempted to rise, he found himself held fast by it. After vainly pulling and jerking for some time, he looked down into the water and saw a hideous face grinning at him. Its eyes were green and shining, its teeth showed from ear to ear, and it held him by the beard with two bony claws. In horror, the king tried ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... ladies—three old ladies, emerging from the doorway one after another with jerking and mechanical salutations, which we return as best we can, fully conscious of our inferiority in this particular style. Then come persons of intermediate age—then quite young ones, a dozen at least, friends, neighbors, the whole quarter, in fact. And the entire company, on arriving, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to his horse and expended his wrath by viciously jerking at the cinches, until the mustang groaned. Sheriff Kern came suddenly into clear view around the last turn and rode quickly up to them, a very short man, muscular, sweaty. He always gave the impression that he had been working ceaselessly for a week, and certainly he found time to shave only once ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... in," Winterman had said; and they had sat on together till midnight, with the door of the bungalow open on a heaving moonlit bay, and summer insects bumping against the chimney of the lamp. Winterman had just bent down to re-fill his pipe from the jar on the table, and Bernald, jerking about to catch him in the yellow circle of lamplight, sat speechless, staring at a fact that seemed suddenly to have substituted itself for Winterman's face, or rather to have ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... I got below again, and was once more seated at table, the schooner was in stays, and immediately afterwards the long, easy, floating and gliding movement of a vessel running off the wind was exchanged for the quick, violent, jerking plunge and heavy lee lurches of the same craft driven under a heavy pressure of canvas into a high and steep head-sea. Ten minutes later ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... buffalo, which were killed hard by the camp, and the flesh transported thither without difficulty. In a little while the whole camp looked like one great slaughter-house; the carcasses were skilfully cut up, great fires were made, scaffolds erected for drying and jerking beef, and an ample provision was made for future subsistence. On the 15th of June, the precise day appointed for the rendezvous, Captain Bonneville and his party ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... beauties, were the poor Indian women, trotting across the square, their black hair plaited with dirty red ribbon, a piece of woollen cloth wrapped about them, and a little mahogany baby hanging behind, its face upturned to the sky, and its head going jerking along, somehow without its neck being dislocated. The most resigned expression on earth is that of an Indian baby. All the groups we had seen promenading the streets the day before were here collected by hundreds; the women of the shopkeeper class, or it may be lower, in their smart white embroidered ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... grinding over the same thoughts, the gravel of the soul's highway,—now and then jarred against an obstacle we cannot crush, but must ride over or round as we best may, sometimes bringing short up against a disappointment, but still working along with the creaking and rattling and grating and jerking that belong to the journey of life, even in the smoothest-rolling vehicle. Suddenly we hear the deep underground reverberation that reveals the unsuspected depth of some abyss of thought or ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... low, scornful "Of course" he seemed now to hold on the wall with his fixed stare the vision of that city office, "at the back of Cannon Street Station," while he growled and mouthed a fragmentary description, jerking his chin up now and then, as ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... tie, with the cut of his clothes. In fact, there was nothing right about him. He had been so beset that he could not think of anything but himself. One day, while sauntering along a campus path, with his hands in his pockets, he met two students coming toward him. They went to right and left, and, jerking his hands from his pockets, roared in each ear, "How dare you walk with ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... coming," just before the mob spilled out into the square. The fleeing dwarf stared about wildly for an instant, his head jerking from side to side so rapidly that it was impossible to get even a fleeting impression of his face—human or nonhuman, familiar or bizarre. Then, like a pellet loosed from its sling, he made straight for the gateway ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... an Enemy, is thus: Draw up your Bridle hand somewhat straight, and if you would have him go on the Right, lay your left Rein close to his Neck, and your left Calf likewise close to his side (as in the Incavalere before) making him lap his left Leg over his Right; then turning your Rod backward jerking him on the left hinder Thigh gently, make him to bring to the right side his Hinder parts, and stand as at first in an even direct Line: Then make him remove his Fore parts more, that he may stand as it were Cross over ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... staircase—the unhappy Tansey, erstwhile champion in the prophetic lists of fortune, ingloriously ascending to his just and certain doom, while (let us imagine) half within the wings stands the imminent figure of Fate jerking wildly at the wrong strings, and mixing things up ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the court-room had evidently impressed him—and in plain, simple words, in strong contrast to the flowery opening of the prosecutor, he recounted the facts as he knew them. He told of the sudden command to halt; of the attack in the rear and the quick jerking of the mail-bags from beneath his saddle, upsetting him into the road; of the disappearance of the robber in the bushes, his head and shoulders only outlined against the dim light of the stars; of the flight of the robber, and ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was at least two hours long, and many a hitch did the Squire give me before it was over; that was the beginning of the little trick, which you see I have now, of jerking up a ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... chaffing look went, like a candle-flame blown out; and a coppery flush spread over it. For some seconds he did not speak, then, jerking his head towards ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of spirit, exerted himself to be agreeable, pouring forth a continuous stream of that pleasant nonsense which is the only style of conversation endurable in the process of riding, driving, or other jerking ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... woman passenger in a dead sleeper? He balanced himself to the dizzy wheel of the truck under him, and waited for her to look his way—since she must be looking for the porter—but the head did not move. The curtains swayed with the jerking of the car, but the woman in Eleven looked intently into the dark stateroom. What did it mean? ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... feet with their heavy nailed boots till I felt as though my toes were crushed beneath them.... There was a great crowd of students, both girls and boys. They slapped the girls over the ears, kicked them, and tumbled them in the corners. Some of them they took by the hair, jerking both sides of the face. Some of the boy students they fastened down with a rope till they had their heads fastened between their legs. Then they trampled them with their heavy boots, kicking them in their faces till their eyes were swelled ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... at 8 a.m. and got started on both motors at 10.45, but soon found that we were unable to move the full loads owing to the blue ice surface, so took to relaying. We advanced under three miles after ten hours' distracting work—mostly pulling the sledges ourselves, jerking, heaving, straining, and cursing—it was tug-of-war work and should have broken our hearts, but in spite of our adversity we all ended up smiling and camped close ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... feel at all," Kitty answered, jerking herself up to make sure she had not grown fins. "I never want to read that Jonah story again. But I knew it! I knew it!" and she chewed her ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... is the prince himself. Boat"—and he stopped prancing in order to point his long forefinger at the Tenor's chest—"boat you are an actor born, my froind! You was the Prince of Devotion himself jus' now. You do that part as if you feel him too! Why"—jerking his head towards the cathedral with a gesture which signified that if he had not seen the thing himself he never could have believed it—"why, you loose yourself in there kompletely!" Then he asked ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... few of them in the end get off. A herd of hundreds, and even thousands, is sometimes slaughtered at one of these battues. The Indians make this wholesale destruction for two objects; first, to get the meat, which they preserve by "jerking"—that is, by cutting into thin strips and drying in the sun—and, secondly, for the skins with which they cover their tents, make their beds, and part of their clothing. Many of them they barter at the trading-houses of the ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... was glad to see approaching, at last, a human figure. It came shambling through the snow, with bent head and swaying, jerking gait, looked up suddenly and sheered off, flitting uncertainly onward, in the dim light, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... a'd niver hidden mysel'; it were his doing,' jerking his thumb toward Philip: 'a'm ready to stand by what a've done. Yo've getten a warrant a'll be bound, for them justices is grand at writin' when ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... assist in some harvesting operations, had got into difficulties near the middle of the graded track. It was making an alarming noise and diffusing a pungent odor, while two men thrust bits of board beneath the wheels for it to climb out of the hole on. Prescott's team slackened their pace, jerking their heads and pricking their ears. They were young range horses that had roamed over wide ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... "Here," jerking the laundry bag, "it holds a lot—brushes, soap, nightgown, toothpowder, fountain-pen, note-book, everything. Berta carried your mending basket. You ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... pieces of meat, for which there was a great competition among the poultry, he managed to entice a young duck into snatching up one of the little frogs. Instead of swallowing it, however, the duck instantly threw it out of its mouth, and went about jerking its head as if trying to get rid of some ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... unwilling dupes,—it might have seemed wonderful how Herr Heuschrecke should be named a Rath, or Councillor, and Counsellor, even in Weissnichtwo. What counsel to any man, or to any woman, could this particular Hofrath give; in whose loose, zigzag figure; in whose thin visage, as it went jerking to and fro, in minute incessant fluctuation,—you traced rather confusion worse confounded; at most, Timidity and physical Cold? Some indeed said withal, he was 'the very Spirit of Love embodied': blue earnest eyes, full of sadness and kindness; purse ever open, and so forth; ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... object that came whipping down from some vast something that had been lurking just outside. Dixon tried to dodge back, but too late. Another great hairy tentacle came lashing around his shoulders, pinning his arms tightly and jerking him out ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... talk. If you've got anything you want to get off your chest about flunkeys or monkeys, or whatever it may be, keep it till Sunday afternoon—when I'm off duty. (He comes a little closer to THE STRANGER) Four o'clock Sunday afternoon—(jerking his thumb over his shoulder)—just round the corner—in the Bolton Mews. See? Nobody there to interrupt us. See? All quite gentlemanly and secluded, and a friend of mine to hold the watch. See? (He ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... allegory—"I've studied weather-cocks. I take note that when one of them so-called fickle-minded inanimates goes jerking around the four cardinal points and feeling of what's between, it's just responding to the fore-running snorts of a pull-up and come-along cyclone. That's why I'm bobbing up and down like an ant looking for its long-lost brother. ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... considerable degree a leading quality of his race—somnolency. Many an hour could the family of Washington see the canoe fastened to a stake, with the old fisherman bent nearly double enjoying a nap, which was only disturbed by the jerking of the white perch caught on his hook. But, as we just said, the domestic duties of Mount Vernon were governed by clock time, and the slumbers of fisher Jack might occasion inconvenience, for the cook required the fish at a certain ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... pitchpoling. Small sword, or broad sword, in all its .. exercises boasts nothing like it. It is only indispensable with an inveterate running whale; its grand fact and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long lance is accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under extreme headway. Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten or twelve feet in length; the staff is much slighter than that of the harpoon, and also of a lighter material—pine. It is furnished with ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... here," she said, suddenly, jerking into his hand a small roll. "I took it! I did it! Me, me!—not hur! I shall be hanged, I shall be burnt in hell, if anybody knows I took it! Out of his pocket, as he leaned ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... Spaniard?" questioned the Sheriff, drawling as usual, but at the same time jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards a placard on ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... of crowns?" The minister's astonishment was so genuine that in jerking back his head his glasses slipped from his nose and dangled ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... the three centre piers stood squat cribs of railway-sleepers, filled within and daubed without with mud, to support the last of the girders as those were riveted up. In the little deep water left by the drought, an overhead-crane travelled to and fro along its spile-pier, jerking sections of iron into place, snorting and backing and grunting as an elephant grunts in the timber-yard. Riveters by the hundred swarmed about the lattice side-work and the iron roof of the railway-line, hung from invisible staging under the bellies of the girders, clustered round the throats of ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... Dern yer crazy-quilt hide. Body'd think yer never see that stun afore in yer life. Gee-long a-a-ap!" Uncle Enoch would growl, accenting his words by jerking the lines. ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... Cuiller, however, jerking his heavy shoulder forward, "when a cure comes to them they say 'Go on, cursed rascal,'" More oaths in English. The hearers looked on without knowing how to act, some of them, without doubt, in that atmosphere, tremblingly admiring ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... felt warm moistness as her lips parted slightly, then the tip of her tongue darted forward between his lips to quest against his tongue in a caress so fleeting that it was withdrawn before he could react—and James reacted by jerking his head back faster than if he had been clubbed in the face. He was still tingling with the shock, a pleasant shock but none the less a shock, when Martha ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... and resting on the platform, he placed his foot upon it and with his strong hands forced its huge jaws together and tried to tie its snout with stout knots. With a last effort the reptile arched its body, struck the floor with its powerful tail, and jerking free, hurled itself with one leap into the water outside the corral, dragging its captor along with it. A cry of horror broke from the lips of all. But like a flash of lightning another body shot ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... strenuous effort, while the little bead of foresight wavered. It moved upward and back again half an inch or so while his finger slowly contracted on the trigger. Then, as it swung across the middle of the patch, he added the last trace of pressure. He saw a train of sparks leap from the jerking muzzle, and felt the butt jar upon his shoulder. Still, as is almost invariably the case with a man whose whole force of will is concentrated on holding the little sight on a living mark, he heard no detonation. He recognized, ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... you 'hish-ish'ing for, Aunt Nancy, I'm not saying anything, and your breath spins into a fellow's ear enough to give him an ear-ache!" said Dr. Solomon, jerking ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... it back and forth. I soon began to masturbate not only every time that I defecated, but also at night just before I went to sleep, and sometimes early in the morning. On the whole I preferred the jerking just described. I always brought about ejaculation after perhaps ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the hook, laid it on a log directly in the path of the approaching foxes, and, going to the end of the line, lay down out of sight to watch what would happen. When the foxes drew near, one of them seized the bait, and the Eskimo, jerking the line, caught the fox by the tongue. In that way the native caught six foxes before he returned to the post; but then, as everyone in the Far North knows, white foxes are ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... extenso, and yet in its day this diary was cried over—before it was put away in the jewel drawer. Truly women are strange—one can never tell how a thing will present itself to them. Honest Jem Agar, nibbling his penholder and jerking these lucid observations out of his military brain by mere force of discipline, never suspected the heart that was in it all—that minute particle of himself that lay in the blot in the corner carefully ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... seized Breed. He watched the magpies close in to the feed. A score of them took the air at half-minute intervals, fluttered wildly and with a spasmodic jerking of their long tails and pitched down in death. The rest of them left the meat. Breed's mind again proved capable of associating ideas, of constructing theories from known facts. The birds had been alive. There were no clanking traps or sound of gunshots to account for it,—yet they had died. Their ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... a show of great strength; but Alice looked quite unconscious of it, laughing merrily, the dimples deepening in her plump cheeks, her forearm, now bared to the elbow, gleaming white and shapely while its muscles rippled on account of the jerking and kicking ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... seemed to become aware for the first time that certain manipulations caused reaction—the jerking of Rhoda's body and her involuntary cry of pain. He repeated the manipulation with his eyes on ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... good-natured chaffing now passed between Couttet and the rival guides. I had had no thought of a race; but I defy anybody, under the circumstances in which we were placed, not to experience a little spurring from the spirit of emulation. Jerking the rope to attract Couttet's attention, I told him in a low voice to pass the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... the Englishman's fear of being over-demonstrative. He was easily capable of turning a nice little speech. Apart from the fear of transgressing the canons of negative good form he would have enjoyed turning one. As it was, he assumed a stammer and a drawl, jerking out a few inarticulate phrases of which the lady could distinguish only "so awfully good of you" and "never forget your jolly kindness." This being masculine, soldier-like, and British, he was hurt to notice an amused smile on the Marquise's lips. He could ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... know? 'Tes Gwenny Mara—prettiest, brightest maid in these parts." And, jerking her thumb towards the neglected bridegroom, she added: "He's a lucky young chap. She'm a sunny maid, for sure, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... creatures to each other. Usually a couple of the little burrowing Geositta are also present. They are lively creatures, running with great rapidity about the mound and bare space that surrounds it, suddenly stopping and jerking their tails in a slow deliberate manner, and occasionally uttering their cry, a trill, or series of quick short clear notes, resembling somewhat the shrill excessive laughter of a child. Among the grave, stationary vizcachas, of which they take no heed, perhaps ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... looked out into the yard he could see the woodshed and everything that happened in the yard. Standing at the window, Skvortsov saw the cook and the beggar come by the back way into the yard and go through the muddy snow to the woodshed. Olga scrutinized her companion angrily, and jerking her elbow unlocked the woodshed and angrily ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... associated with the beautiful tall forests of the more northern counties of western New York, sometimes found in the open woods of pasture-lands, and quite partial to hardwood trees. In its flitting motion in search of insect-prey, and in the jerking curves of its more prolonged flight, as also in its structure, it is a genuine Wood Warbler and keeps for the most part to what Thoreau calls the "upper ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... embellished the natural caricature of his person by suspending about his neck and shoulders and waist quantities of little bundles and parcels, which he thought too valuable to be entrusted to the jerking of pack-saddles. The mule that fell to his lot on this journey every now and then, forgetting that his rider was a saint, and remembering that he was a tailor, took a quiet roll upon the ground, and stretched his limbs calmly and lazily, like a good man awaiting a sermon. Dthemetri ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... that he was young, thick-set and restless. She noticed even then his eyes, bright and laughing as though he were immensely amused. His mouth opened and closed again, his eyes were never still, and he made fierce dumb protests with his body, jerking it forward pulling it back, as a rider strives to restrain an unruly horse. Maggie was able to notice these things, because during the first moments her Aunt Anne entirely held the stage. She advanced to the fireplace with her halting ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... town in the hollow! How the lights seemed to wink and quiver in its fury, lights in the harbour, lights in bedroom windows high up! And rolling dark waves before it, it raced over the Atlantic, jerking the stars above the ships this ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... myself between her and the retreating troop, I dismounted to fire within forty yards of her, in open ground. Colesberg was extremely afraid of the elephants, and gave me much trouble, jerking my arm when I tried to fire. At length I let fly; but, on endeavoring to regain my saddle, Colesberg declined to allow me to mount; and when I tried to lead him, and run for it, he only backed toward the wounded elephant. At this moment I heard another elephant ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... instant his feet struck bottom he saw the pocket-miner's arm leap out, and his own legs knew a swift, jerking grip that overthrew him. In the nature of the jump his revolver-hand was above his head. Swiftly as the grip had flashed about his legs, just as swiftly he brought the revolver down. He was still in the air, his fall in process of completion, when he pulled the ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... of fifteen men, had taken charge, the weather began to lour again, nevertheless we took the prize in tow, and continued on our voyage for the next three days, without anything particular happening. It was the middle watch, and I was sound asleep, when I was startled by a violent jerking of my hammock, and a cry "that the brig was amongst the breakers." I ran on deck in my shirt, where I found all hands, and a scene of confusion such as I never had witnessed before. The gale had increased, yet the prize had not been cast off, and the consequence was, that by ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... me to think him unconcerned, but beneath the flippancy I saw the nerves jerking. Then quite simply he began to tell me. He spoke in a low, even monotone, dispassionately, as though for him the incident no longer was ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... not sleep. Suddenly she was lifted from her thoughts by strange sounds that came to her from the hall without. She opened the door cautiously. A white figure was flitting up and down, wringing its hands, the gray hair bobbing about the jerking head. ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... leaving them strewn all over the room, blow out the candle, and jump into bed as if you had backed yourself for a heavy wager to do the whole thing against time. There you toss and tumble about for a couple of hours or so, varying the monotony by occasionally jerking the clothes off and getting out and putting them on again. At length you drop into an uneasy and fitful slumber, have bad dreams, and wake up ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... his father had not descended on him. Jerking out sentences by spasms, at length he said, "I was a beggar—I am ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... excited his cupidity to such a degree, that after fixing upon them a long and admiring gaze, he suddenly reached over and made a snatch at them. He got hold of one, and in trying to pull it off came very near jerking Max overboard. Morton, who was sitting next to Max, interfered, and caught the man by the arm, with a look and manner that made me fear he might do something imprudent. The savage, who was an athletic fellow, obstinately maintained ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... time the robin tried to be on friendly terms with her neighbor, I noticed her standing near him on the picket fence under his tree. There were not more than three pickets between them, and she was expostulating earnestly, with flirting tail and jerking wings, and with loud "tut! tut's," and "he! he's!" she managed to be very eloquent. Had he driven her from his nest? and was she complaining? I could only guess. The kingbird did not reply to her, but when she flew ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... an adequate idea of the intonation and pronunciation which Uncle Remus brought to bear upon this wonderful word. Those who can recall to mind the peculiar gurgling, jerking, liquid sound made by pouring water from a large jug, or the sound produced by throwing several stones in rapid succession into a pond of deep water, may be able to form a very faint idea of the sound, but it can not be reproduced in print. The ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... more to be said." (Hums, haws, and examines his nails,—filbert-nails, not a speck on them. Then suddenly, and jerking up his head) "That 'Capitalist'! it has been on my conscience, nephew, ever since; and, somehow or other, since I have abandoned the cause of my fellow-creatures, I think I have cared more ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... waiting for you," he replied, and because he could not bear the strange sweet pain that filled him he plunged out of the shop, jerking the door so that the little bell squealed with surprise. He had forgotten ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... gast you!" he bellowed, jerking the lasso out of the professor's hands, while the albatross went flapping off, a long streamer of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... head in high-spirited distemper and flounced through the doorway. He rose from his mound of pillows, jerking his daring waistcoat into place, flinging each knee outward to adjust the knifelike trouser creases, swept backward a black, pomaded forelock and straightened ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... his noose. The distance was less than ten feet, and the loop spread, quick and true, over the head of the Japanese. But, swift though the action was, the Japanese had an instant to prepare himself. His right arm shot up. As Orme, jerking at the rope, tried to tighten the noose, the hand of the Japanese pushed it over his head and it slid over the side into the water. In a few seconds the swift boat had disappeared ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... infernal system of Taxation of this country and every individual figure in the National Debt, I'll get upon your back and ride you like a horse!" which it's my belief he would have done and even actually jerking his neat little legs ready for a spring as it was. "This," says Mr. Buffle without his pen "is an assault and I'll have the law of you." "Sir" replies the Major "if you are a man of honour, your Collector of whatever may be due on the Honourable Assessment by applying to ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy • Charles Dickens
... them the discharged sailor salutes promptly, and with as much respect as if all were on the quarterdeck of the Crusader. But with much more demonstration; for their well-timed appearance draws from him an exclamation of joy. Jerking off his straw hat, and giving a twitch to one of his brow-locks, he bobs his head several times in succession, with a simultaneous back-scrape of his foot upon ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... time, brutally jerking her toward him, but as instantly staggered backward, grasping at the table, the flash of anger in his eyes changing to a look of startled surprise. A pistol was leveled full in his face, the polished ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... the ground. Then she sprang back and joined the throng of spectators. Two of the players, one from each side, chosen for strength and dexterity, advanced. They hooked the ball together in their united bats and thus raised it aloft, until the bats were absolutely perpendicular. Then with a quick, jerking motion they shot it upward. Much might be gained by this first shot or stroke, but on this occasion the two players were equal, and it shot almost absolutely straight into the air. The nearest groups made a rush for ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... circumvent the choking sensation that often came to him. Marcella brought some comfort by placing the kitchen ironing board across the bed, resting on the backs of two chairs so that he could lean forward on it. Sometimes he slept so, his grey head jerking forward ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... at once, adding: "Put him to the right of Howard"—a young Philadelphian with a thigh stump, who was likely to die of hemorrhage, and whose jerking nerves I could soothe and quiet better than any ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... looked up close under her black eyebrows and pointed at you. Pretty—pretty blue eyes, and something frightening that made you look at them. And something queer about her narrow jaw. It thrust itself forward, jerking ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... one might catch a glimpse of the scoundrel through the smoke. There he sat in the belfry upon the belfry-man, who was lying flat upon his back. In his teeth the villain held the bell-rope, which he kept jerking about with his head, raising such a clatter that my ears ring again even to think of it. On his lap lay the big fiddle, at which he was scraping, out of all time and tune, with both hands, making a great show, the nincompoop! of playing ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was jerking out these phrases he was stumping up and down the tavern on his crutch, slapping tables with his hand, and giving such a show of excitement as would have convinced an Old Bailey judge or a Bow Street runner. My suspicions had been thoroughly reawakened on finding Black Dog at the "Spy-glass," and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mountains. This report, seemingly authentic and official, served to relax the nerves, and the west-bound driver sang to himself as he guided the four horses forward, while the conductor, a sawed-off gun planted between his knees, nodded drowsily. Inside there were but three passengers, jerking back and forth, as the wheels struck the deep ruts of the trail, occasionally exchanging a word or two, but usually staring gloomily forth at the monotonous scene. Miss McDonald and Moylan occupied the back seat, some baggage ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... throwing back of the head with a cluck of the tongue is said to be used as a negative by the modern Greeks and Turks, the latter people expressing yes by a movement like that made by us when we shake our heads.[23] The Abyssinians, as I am informed by Captain Speedy, express a negative by jerking the head to the right shoulder, together with a slight cluck, the mouth being closed; an affirmation is expressed by the head being thrown backwards and the eyebrows raised for an instant. The Tagals of Luzon, in ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... upon the fraction of a second. In a frenzy jerking one of my hands free, and throwing the full weight of my body across his face to momentarily smother the outcry, I twisted around, drew my knife, and plunged it deep into his side. There was a convulsive tremor, and silence. Yet, as the king snake had done, I also drew back ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... through a preliminary drill, consisting of placing it inside his waistcoat, a couple of buttons being left carelessly unfastened; next thrusting his hand within, in an indifferent manner, then instantly jerking out and pointing the weapon at an imaginary foe in front of him. This maneuver he repeated scores of times, narrowly escaping the firing of the weapon, until he satisfied himself that he could do ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... could, and that kept him from falling as fast and as hard as he otherwise would have done, because being spread out so flat that way, the air held him up a little. And then there was his tail, that funny little tail he is so fond of jerking when he scolds. This helped him too. It helped him keep his balance and keep from turning over ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... have been, across her middle and watching her son while the machine pushed about under his palm, and he bent his wan eyes upon one of the oval-framed photographs on the wall, as if rapt in a supernal vision. The boy stared drowsily at the planchette, jerking this way and that, and making abrupt starts and stops. At last the young man lifted his palm from it, and put it aside to study the hieroglyphics it had left ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... came into the study ten minutes later he found the party ranged to meet him. A girl was sitting on a box in the corner by the window, and stood up to receive him; a young man was sitting back in a Windsor chair, with one boot off, jerking spasmodically; his eyes stared unmeaningly before him. A tallish, lean man of a particularly unprepossessing appearance was leaning over him with an air of immense solicitude. They were all three evidently of ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... Lordship, jerking his imprisoned legs pettishly, "if I didn't happen to be sitting trussed up here, and we had a couple of pair of muffles, why we might have had a friendly 'go' just to take each other's measures; as ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... somewhat shy of speaking of himself, even before those who knew him best, and whom he loved the most; but at last it burst forth from him, and with a somewhat jerking eloquence he declared that he could not, would not, bear this ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... jar of sheet-blocks and the rat-tat-tat of the reef-points against the canvas. In the cabin they could feel the Willi-Waw heel, swing into the wind, and right. David Grief still hesitated. From for'ard came the jerking rattle of headsail halyards through the sheaves. The little vessel heeled, and through the cabin walls came the gurgle ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London |
