Clapboards

The clapboards were a foot wide, evidently fashioned with care and beaded on the edges. ❋ Unknown (1899)

Oldtimers in New England and New York, nothing the feather-like pattern, called the clapboards horsefeathers. ❋ Unknown (1986)

The terrible sickness and mortality of the whole company, afloat and ashore, had, of course, made it impossible to freight her as intended with "clapboards" [stave-stock], sassafras roots, peltry, etc. ❋ Azel Ames (1876)

Their cabin, which may serve as a specimen of these rudiments of houses, was formed of round logs, with apertures of three or four inches: there was no chimney, but large intervals were left between the "clapboards," for the escape of the smoke. ❋ William Bingley (1798)

"clapboards" (as they call rough shingles in the old West) at the stars. ❋ Edward Eggleston (1869)

He tells of the high-hole that repeatedly drills through the clapboards of an empty house in a vain attempt to find a thickness of wood deep enough in which to build its nest. ❋ Unknown (2010)

The house was quaint, with clapboards running up and down, neatly trimmed, and there were five rooms, a tiny porch, a rosy front yard, and unbelievably delicious strawberries in the rear. ❋ W.E.B. DU BOIS (2004)

Neat clapboards and stately Victorians line quiet streets wrapped tight around the Erie Canal. ❋ Unknown (2008)

Looking down, I saw flowers under my feet, and reached through the gap in a spill of white clapboards, plucking a plastic peony from a cast off graveyard wreath. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Nicci sank back against the rough clapboards, staying low behind the people ahead of her, until Sister Alessandra had vanished into the vast sea of people crowding the street. ❋ Unknown (2010)

The dump smelled of the chaos of creation, of rusting metal and burned glass, chemicals and rancid rainwater, wet cardboard and rotting wood, paint slaking off clapboards and drums. ❋ Unknown (2010)

The clapboards are just as gray as my beard, and a whole lot scraggier. ❋ Unknown (2010)

I imagined my bat families flying from house to house, knocking on eaves and loose clapboards, only to be driven off by the territorial winged residents already there (and bats hate those bat houses, we have them all over our property - it's the one place where bats won't roost). ❋ Unknown (2010)

She knew she had only just gotten there, she knew she had no right to judge a place she didn't know, but there was something about it — the windows, reflecting the darkening sky, the bare trees laying their skeletal shadows on the white clapboards … she wondered if, in fact, she would be able to get any work done there at all. ❋ Unknown (2010)

A furious spring wind had hurled itself against the farmhouse all night, howling and whistling, causing the shutters to slam against the clapboards with a repetitive bang! bang! bang! ❋ Becca Fitzpatrick (2010)

Wands of beach peas, sweet pepper bush, and Ruby Lace oleander meandered the shoreline, lending the home called Sea Escape all the color it needed, its weathered clapboards providing the contrast. ❋ Lynne Griffin (2010)