United States or Pitcairn Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He could say to any King's Forester who made bold to stop him: "I am here on the King's business!" "Gramercy! No more oak-bark and ditch-water and the smell of half-tanned hides to-day!" quoth he, gaily. "I shall e'en see what the free air of heaven tastes like, when it sweeps through the open wood."
Therefore, I fell to at once, upon that hint from Lizzie, and being used to thatching-work, and the making of traps, and so on, before very long I built myself a pair of strong and light snow-shoes, framed with ash and ribbed of withy, with half-tanned calf-skin stretched across, and an inner sole to support my feet.
The two tradesmen now got down from their respective wagons, and approaching each other with hands extended, presented a corporeal contrast one seldom sees in the rural districts of New England, inasmuch as the fishmonger stood six feet in his grain-leather boots, and was so lean of person that one might easily have imagined him fed on half-tanned leather and Connecticut nutmegs, while the major stood just five feet two in his stockings, measured exactly twenty-seven inches across the broad disc of his trousers, and had a belly equal to that of three turtle-fed aldermen rolled into one.
In winter, when the snow covered the earth for several weeks, the famished and furious wolves assembled in the neighbourhood in packs, carrying off in the broad daylight everything they could lay their teeth on; sheep and shepherd, dogs and huntsman, horse and horseman, bones, hair, and skins half-tanned, old hats and shoes even the corrupt bodies of the dead were torn from their resting-places, and eaten by these horrid animals.
The sudden vision which met his wandering gaze, the donkey calmly chewing scrub buds, with the green juice already oozing from the corners of his frothy mouth, acted upon him like magic. He was, after all, only human, and when he got hands upon a piece of brush he thrashed the poor beast until it seemed as though even its already half-tanned hide would be eternally ruined.
Perspiration flowed freely down the faces of those wandering Hoosiers faces that were fast assuming the color of half-tanned leather under the influence of sunshine and storm. Once an hour there was the customary halt, when the boys would stretch their legs by the roadside, hitching their knapsacks up under their heads.
And after getting as far as this strange terrestrial chip-pile, he has been so unfortunately susceptible as to fall in love with some slender-limbed daughter of the desert? has he been captivated by a pair of big, opthamalmia-proof, black eyes, a coy sidewise glance, or a graceful, jaunty style of shouldering a half-tanned goat-skin of doke?
Therefore, I fell to at once, upon that hint from Lizzie, and being used to thatching-work, and the making of traps, and so on, before very long I built myself a pair of strong and light snow-shoes, framed with ash and ribbed of withy, with half-tanned calf-skin stretched across, and an inner sole to support my feet.
Word Of The Day