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It was his practice when going into the field for work, to take with him written-out paragraphs from the book that he had at the moment in mind and to repeat these paragraphs between the various chores or between the wood-chopping until every page was committed by heart. Paper was scarce and dear and for the boy unattainable. He used for his copying bits of board shaved smooth with his jack-knife.
After we had taken tea, that is to say, after we had drawn around the ironing-board put on two chairs in the front entry, made the cocoa in a tin dipper, stirred it with a fork, and cut the bread with a jack-knife, after the baby was fairly off to bed in a champagne-basket, and Tip disposed of, his mother only knew where, we coaxed a consumptive fire into the parlor grate, and sat down before it in the carpetless, pictureless, curtainless, blank, bare, soapy room.
He went gently up the stairs, avoiding steps Nos. 1 and 7 because they were "creakers," as he found out long ago, when he used to 'hook' maple sugar from the other side of the house. The door at the top was closed and buttoned, but he put his jack-knife blade through the crack and turned the button. After listening awhile and hearing no sound in the kitchen, he gently opened the squeaky old door.
I remember we thought him too gentle at first to have really hailed from the Plains; but one night, when Hamilton remonstrated with a man who, I believe, had allowed himself to get in that state described by the sailors as 'three sheets in the wind, and the fourth fluttering, and was met with rather an uncivil reply, the Texan shut the offender up like a jack-knife with his heavy grip and the intimation that 'he proposed to settle the Bible-man's scores.
The old fisherman smiled complacently, hitched up his pantaloons, took a seat beside us, and, after extracting a jack-knife from one pocket, and a hand of tobacco from the other, and deliberately supplying himself with a fresh quid, he mentioned, apologetically, that he supposed the Doctor had heard it all before. "Yes, twenty times," said the Doctor; "but never mind; it's a good story yet.
I did not utter one word of pleading; but as he stooped for Miriam's bundle, he whisked out a jack-knife and my heart bounded with a great hope. I suppose, involuntarily, I must have lifted my arms to have the bonds severed; for Laplante shook his head. "No mine frien' not now I not scalp Louis Laplante for your sake, no, never.
Lottie doubled up like a jack-knife and buried her sharp teeth in the brown hand gripping her so tightly, biting so viciously that the blood ran and Peace screamed with pain. Frightened at the sight of the two girls clinched in battle, the other children danced excitedly about the yard and shrieked wildly.
In Arabia only carpenters' sons can do these things; the ordinary boy does not even know how to use a jack-knife; he never had one. A short definition of Arabia would be "a land without tools." Ritter, the great geographer, calls Arabia "the anti-industrial centre of the world," which is only the same definition in other words.
Drawing a pipe and a plug of black tobacco and a jack-knife from his pocket, he shaved some of the plug into the palm of his left hand, rolled it between his palms, and filled the pipe. Then, with some deliberation, he selected a long, slender sliver from the wood box, ignited it at the stove, lighted his pipe and carefully extinguished the burning sliver. "This is a fix, now!
Here he was searched again for jack-knife or brass knuckles, bound with the hambro-line, gagged with a thole-pin, and marched forward, past the prostrate first mate, who lay quiet in the scuppers, and the erect but agonized second mate, gagged and bound to the fife-rail, to the port forecastle, where he was locked in with the Chinese cook, who, similarly treated, had preceded.
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