United States or Iceland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But Bartley Coffin could not be restrained from lagging behind and whispering confidentially in Jack's ear: "If you want to be truly happy, mate, an' live clear of a life of pesterin', don't you never buy Sarah Libbie a satin dress! Minnie an' I have made it up, thanks to Willie Spence, but 'twas a tussle. I'd come to the jumpin'-off place." The statement was but too true.
Patrick Haney was there, but refused to go with them. "Sure I'm at the jumpin'-off place now, and to immigrate furder would be to put meself in the hands of the murtherin' redskins." His talk was the touch of comedy which the situation needed.
The urchin caught the hat deftly on the back of his head, and pranced up to Ann with his hands in his pockets. "Gee-whiz! marm but I thought you'd flunked fur sure. I reckoned me an' Bones was barkin' up the wrong tree this time. It looked as if we'd come to a jumpin'-off place, an' you'd given us the slip. I'm Bob, myself, ye see, an' I've come all right!" "Are you Robert Sawyer?" she gasped.
I wonder if de Good Lo'd made dis place, anyway," and she gazed ruefully around. "It looks to me as if de deb'l had a mighty big hand in it, fo' sich a mixed up contraption of a hole I nebber set my two eyes on befo'. An' to t'ink dat de Cun'l had to leab his nice home in Ol' Connec., an' come to a jumpin'-off place like dis.
An' I'se gwine ter keep gittin' tu jest' ez fur an' ez fast ez dey axes me ter move on, ez long ez de road's cut out an' I don't come ter no jumpin'-off place. Ef dey don't approve of Berry Lawson a stayin' roun' h'yer, he's jes' a gwine West ter grow up wid der kentry." "I'd sooner be dead than be sech a limber-jinted coward!" said Nimbus.
"Well, honey, 't ain't no great long rigamarole; hit's des one er deze yer tales w'at goes in a gallop twel it gits ter de jumpin'-off place. "One time Brer Wolf wuz gwine 'long de big road feelin' mighty proud en high-strung. He wuz a mighty high-up man in dem days, Brer Wolf wuz, en 'mos' all de yuther creeturs wuz feared un 'im.
But evidently the girl was not interested by his praise of the art-life of European capitals or their historical associations; she cut short his disquisition: "See here! When I first seed you an' knew you was raised in Boston, an' had lived in New York, I jest thought you no account for comin' to this jumpin'-off place.
Well, that is just under ape-town, and that's the jumpin'-off place of their prisoners. I expect there's heaps of skeletons there, if we looked for 'em. They have a sort of clear parade-ground on the top, and they make a proper ceremony about it. One by one the poor devils have to jump, and the game is to see whether they are merely dashed to pieces or whether they get skewered on the canes.
Mart maintained his deceptive cheer at the breakfast-table, and the haggard look of the earlier hour passed away as he resolutely attacked his chop. He spoke of his exile in a tone of resignation mixed with humor. "Sure, the old dad will have the laugh on us. He told us this was the jumpin'-off place." "What will we do about the house?" asked Bertha. "Will we sell or rent?" "Nayther.
He 'lows he hev been tryin' ter git shet o' the railroads an' dirt roads an' human folks, an' he s'posed he hed run ter the jumpin'-off place, the e-ends o' the yearth; but hyar kems the road o' civilization a-pursuin' him like the sarpient o' the Pit, with the knowledge o' good an' evil, a grain o' wheat an' a bushel o' chaff, an' he reckons he'll hev ter cut an' run again."
Word Of The Day