United States or Chile ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Somethin's soaked into him in the last day or two. It's them old painters, I think, that's helpin' him. He come in a while ago with that child clingin' to him and them two mossbacks followin' behin', and his face was all ironed out, and I could see a song trembling on his lips all ready to burst out. Pray God it'll last!"
So it is with you, my friends. If you don't believe in Phrenology when I dismiss you to-night, remember that you are in the minority in this audience, and a very small minority at that, composed of unprogressive mossbacks and persons of small mental capacity, and if you will call at my rooms to-morrow, I'll tell you to which of these classes you belong.
"Old sweats!" he echoed sarcastically he pronounced it "aoweld" "Yas! you go tell that t' th' Marines, me lad! . . . Took a few o' th' sime 'old sweats' t' knock ''Ay Leg! 'Straw Leg' inter some o' you mossbacks at th' stort orf. Gee! Har! oh, gorblimey, yas!" He illustrated his trenchant remarks in suggestive pantomime.
"We didn't want the nuisance of a prosecution," said Fay, "because that would mean that these mossbacks could drag us off to Rapid City any old time as witnesses, and keep us there indefinitely. Neither did we want to let them off scot-free. They'd made us altogether too much trouble for that! Bert here suggested a very simple way out.
"I took her to a dance one night, A mossback gave the bidding Silver Jack bossed the shebang, and Big Dan played the fiddle. We danced and drank the livelong night With fights between the dancing, Till Silver Jack cleaned out the ranch And sent the mossbacks prancing." And with the increasing war and turmoil of the quick water the last shout of the Fighting Forty mingled faintly and was lost.
"There's three or four mossbacks in the lot that are honest," cut in Welton, "but it's because they're too damn thick-headed to be anything else. Don't get kiddish enough to do the picturesque mountaineer act, Bobby. I can dig you up four hundred of that stripe anywhere and holding down just about as valuable jobs. Don't get too thick with that kind.
You have to drive her the whole length of the stream, through a mixed hardwood and farm country. Lots of partridges and mossbacks, but no improvements. Not a dam the whole length of her. Case of hit the freshet water or get hung." "Well, we've done that kind of a job before." "Yes, before!" Tally retorted. "If I had a half-crew of good, old-fashioned white-water birlers, I'd rest easy.
"My father'll come down here and show you old mossbacks a thing or two," he laughed. The old man turned his eyes on him slowly. Ferdy was not a favorite with him. For one thing, he played on the piano. But there were other reasons. "Who is your father, son?" The squire drew a long whiff from his pipe. "Aaron Wickersham of Wickersham & Company, who is setting up the chips for this railroad.
It is an unimproved river, and difficult to drive, and just lined with mossbacks. The crew is a mixed bunch some old men, some young toughs. They're a hard crowd, and one not like the men on the main drive. It really needs either Tally or me up here; but we can't get away for this little proposition. He's got Darrell in charge. Darrell's a good man on a big job.
Word Of The Day