"Chore" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stairs, and closing the door Maggie applied her eye to the keyhole, listening breathlessly for what might follow. George Douglas and Henry Warner occupied separate rooms, and their boots were now standing outside their doors, ready for the chore boy, Jim, who thus earned a quarter every day. Stumbling first upon the pair belonging to George Douglas, the lady took them up, ejaculating: "Boots! boots! Yes, men's boots, as I'm a living woman! The like was never seen by me before in this hall. Another pair!" she continued, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... was dead, and just as well. These natives would never dare to come out of the villages if they knew any lions were left. Most of them had gone to Cape and the other cities anyway; handling cattle was too much of a chore, except on a government farm. Those cows looked like moving ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... of elation did not last long. To guide a team for a few minutes as an experiment was one thing—to plow all day like a hired hand was another. It was not a chore; it was a job. It meant moving to and fro hour after hour, day after day, with no one to talk to but the horses. It meant trudging eight or nine miles in the forenoon and as many more in the afternoon, with less than an hour off at noon. It meant dragging the heavy implement around the corners, ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... did. An' there's your Grandfather Gray's clock. I was a little disappointed at first because it had a brass face, 'stead o' bein' white with scenes on it, like they usually was—an' then it was such a chore, with everything else there was to do, to keep it shinin' like it ought to. But now I think I like it better than the other kind, an' it's tickin' away, same as it has this last hundred years an' more. Do you remember ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... says. 'No,' says I, 'I sha'n't care.' I said it real easy, for 'twas true. Somehow, I'd got beyond carin'. My heart dropped blood, but I couldn't bear to have him in trouble. 'They al'ays told me I was cut out for an old maid," I says, 'an' I guess I be. Housekeepin' 's a chore, anyway. You let all the stuff set right here jest as we've had it, an' ask Cap'n Fuller to come an' bring his chist; an' I'll settle down in the Willer Brook house an' make button-holes. It's real pretty work.' You see, the reason I was so high for it was 't I ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... 'Eden New,' and dancing they sang in a chore, 'We are out of it all!—yea, in Little-Ease cramped no more!' And their shrouded figures pacing with joy I could see As you see the stage from the gallery. And they had ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... of our towns we don't allow smokin' in the streets, though most of them we do, and where it is agin law, it is two dollars fine in a gineral way. Well, Sassy went down to Boston, to do a little chore of business there, where this law was, only he didn't know it. So, soon as he gets off the coach, he outs with his case, takes a cigar, lights it, and walks on, smoking like a furnace flue. No sooner said than done. Up steps a constable and says, "I'll trouble you for two dollars for smokin' ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... the Judge's to-morrow to see what he says. Shouldn't wonder if he'd take you for a chore-boy, if you are as smart as you say. He always has one in the summer, and I haven't seen any round yet. Can ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... her pleasantly from the plush sofa. "It seems you got married yesterday, up to the 'Piscopal church; I heard all about the wedding from the minister's chore-man. It would be a pity, wouldn't it, to let Mr. Royall know you had an account running here? I just put it to you ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... caused me to spend the summer months in a farming district, a few miles from the village of E., and it was there I met with Terry Dolan. He had a short time previous come over from Ireland, and was engaged as a sort of chore boy by Mr. L., in whose family I resided during my stay in the neighborhood. This Terry was the oddest being with whom I ever chanced to meet. Would that I could describe him!—but most of us, I believe, occasionally ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... once so tireless and so devotedly served, Colonel Winchester handled his team with a prudence which must have chafed his infatuation to the bone. Of every week, five and a half days did they labour and not an hour more. No matter how loudly a chore called for completion, no matter how blackly wind and weather were threatening the half-done work, upon Wednesday afternoon and Sunday not an axe was lifted, not a cord hitched, not a nail driven. It was a wise rule and fruitful. The Sabbath rest leavened ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... too fat and flabby. Lantier had altogether neglected her; he no longer escorted her or even bothered to give her a pinch now and again. She did not seem to notice this finish of a long liaison slowly spun out, and ending in mutual insolence. It was a chore the less for her. Even Lantier's intimacy with Virginie left her quite calm, so great was her indifference now for all that she had been so upset about in the past. She would even have held a candle for ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... friend. He was a "mining man," and, from the impression that Mr. Hoover still has of him, probably a mining engineer. He stayed at the local hotel for two or three days, and saw what he could of young Herbert between school-hours and chore-times. His conversation was apparently mostly about the difference in the work and achievements in the world of the man who had a profession and the one who had not. It was illustrated, because the speaker was a miner, by examples in the field of mining. The talk also was ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... and splitting of the wood at the two woodpiles, to meet the daily demands of the many and large stoves, that have to be kept constantly running, is the regular morning and evening chore of those of the boys, that are not otherwise employed at that time about the buildings or stock. The preparation of the fuel in the timber and again at the woodpiles is, to say the least, a long and rather monotonous ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... Muldair's mother. They two "tended out" in a buggy, but did not do much walking. Mr. Merriam was with them, and, quite as a surprise, they had Thurlessen, a nice old Swede, who had served in the army, and had ever since been attached to that school as chore-man. He blacked the girls' shoes, waited for them at concert, and sometimes, for a slight bribe, bought almond candy for them in school hours, when they could not possibly live till afternoon without a supply. ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... 'tis, sure enough," admitted Mr. Daggett. "I guess I must be losing my eyesight.... It's going to be quite a chore to fix up the old Bolton house," he added, as he inserted the blue labeled can of reputation in a red and yellow striped ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... the Dempsy Carters returned without Joseph's parents; they had gone to town and were not expected home until "chore time." ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... hand of the hardy soldier. Once he paused in his drinking and scanned Mab's face closely. Most people would have said the Sergeant had an affair of the law in hand, and was searching the face of a criminal; but most people are not good at interpretation. Mab was speaking to the chore-girl at the same time and did not see the look. If she could have defined her thoughts when she, in turn, glanced into the Sergeant's face, a moment afterwards, she would have said, "Austerity fills this man. Isolation marks him for its own." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the remedy? Yea, this: I gently swing the door Here, of my fane—no soul to wis - And cross the patterned floor To the rood-screen That stands between The nave and inner chore. ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... it be done?" asked his uncle, interested in spite of himself, for after his interview with the president of the First National that morning he began to look upon Bob as something more than a chore boy. ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... easily opened with a spading fork or a very sharp common shovel. After normal rotary tilling, either tool can fairly easily be wiggled 12 inches into the earth and small bites of plowpan loosened. Once this laborious chore is accomplished the first time, deep tillage will be far easier. In fact, it becomes so easy that I've been looking for a custom-made ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon
... passed the queer little shops, with their antiquated signboards, the farmer had something to say about each one. How Omnium Grabb here, the grocer, missed his dried apples one morning, and how he accused his chore-boy, who was his sister's son too, of having eaten them,—"As if any livin' boy would pick out dried apples to eat, when he hed a hull store to choose from!" and how the very next day a man coming to buy a pair of boots, Omnium Grabb hooked down a pair from the ceiling, where all the boots hung, ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... with eloquence and courage, the right of the individual to be both Catholic and Liberal, and challenged the policy of clerical intimidation which had made the leaders of the church nothing but the tools and chore-boys of Hector Langevin, the Tory leader in the province. It may rightly be assumed that it was something more than a coincidence that not long after the delivery of this speech, Rome put a bit in the mouth of the champing ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... Sunday night supper. Its simplicity has earned this repast a wide reputation and it is considered a great lark to go there. Incidentally, this truly rural supper is so inexpensive that it matters little how many are on hand Sunday evenings. Also the chore of washing dishes after the last guests have gone is reduced to lowest terms, likewise an item not to ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... remarks: "On entering the University, he becomes a Kameel,—a Camel. This happy transition-state of a few weeks gone by, he comes forth finally, on entering a Chore, a Fox, and runs joyfully into the new Burschen life. During the first semester or half-year, he is a gold fox, which means, that he has foxes, or rich gold in plenty yet; or he is a Crass-fucks, or fat ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... Amos, but my chore's done. Now, I'll stay home and enjoy life. Lydia, is it too hot for waffles and coffee, for supper? Lord, I've dreamed of those old days and of ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the privilege part; it'll be considerable of a chore, I guess. If her mother hain't got her on the right track by now, she won't take to it herself ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... thing like this, or has got any call to advise her. Of course, the way I feel is like takin' the top of his head off. But I d' know," he added, "as that would do a great deal of good, either. I presume a woman's got rather of a chore to get along with a man, anyway. We a'n't any of us much to brag on. It's out o' sight, out o' mind, with the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... uttered a long yell, produced by alternating the voice between a high falsetto and a natural tone. This was the "yell," and had never failed to call Guy forth to join them unless he had some chore on hand and his "Paw" was too near to prevent his renegading to the Indians. He soon appeared waving a branch, the established signal that he came ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and me were first the two cashiers, then my special friends, the Spanish dessert man and the Greek coffee and tea man. That is, they were the main occupants of their long compartment, but at the time of lunch rush at least six men worked there. Counting the chore persons of various sorts and not counting waiters, we had some thirty-eight working in or for our cafe—all men but the two fat Porto-Rican ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... Kingston," replied Mr. Stewart, "if you think there's any chance of that being the case, we can settle the question right enough in this way:—Let Frank come to the woods with me this winter. I will give him a berth as chore-boy in one of the camps; and if that doesn't sicken him of the business, then all I can say is you'd better let the lad ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... a wagon unless you've got a road to run it on, can you?" asked Uncle Henry. "It was a long, long time before they had any roads. It's an awful chore to make roads in a new country all woods and hills and swamps and rocks. You were lucky if there was a good path from your ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... I have failed completely to interest my tenant in my project. Each mowing or clean-up job is just a chore to him. I can't blame him. Why should I expect anything else? With a World War on hand, and with his son in the army, and with two farms to care for, the immediate bread-and-butter jobs come first and my mowing suffers. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... the most dreadful things are happening around you, the regular and necessary work of the world must be carried on. Your own particular "chore" must be done as well as you can ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... asks me what we could do in the land of the Corahai! Aromali! I almost think that I am speaking to a lilipendi (simpleton). Are there not horses to chore? Yes, I trow there are, and better ones than in this land, and asses and mules. In the land of the Corahai you must hokkawar and chore even as you must here, or in your own country, or else you are no Caloro. Can you not join yourselves with the black people who live in the despoblados? Yes, surely; ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... while Harry was performing his willing chore of carrying out for his grandmother the little dinner prepared by Mrs. Schum and partaken of by Lilly and Zoe at a small card table opened up beside the window of their room, Zoe announced, with a certain high-handedness with ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... one evening when he failed to do a very important chore, the young man said: "I told you what would happen if you did not do better and the time has come when ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... took Emmy's mother from her brought to the child her first young companion and friend. Adam Bogardus came as chore-boy to the farm,—an only child himself, and sensitive through the clashing of gentle instincts with rough and inferior surroundings; brought up in that depressed God-fearing attitude in which a widow not strong, and earning her bread, would do her duty by an only son. Not a natural fighter, she ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... at the dry grass at her side. "That's so. 'Tain't one person's chore more 'an another's. But—there! If this wa'n't Jonesville, I believe I'd let him stay with me till he finishes ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... with the early spring, until finally we arrived at a clearing in which stood two huge tents, a mammoth kettle slung over a fire of logs, and drying racks about the timbers of another fire. A fat cook in the inevitable battered derby hat, two bare-armed cookees, and a chore "boy" of seventy-odd summers were the only human beings in sight. One of the cookees agreed to keep an eye on my horse. I picked my way down a well-worn trail toward the regular clank, clank, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... harshly to my ears, on that June afternoon now so long ago. I was seated in the small room over the kitchen which was appropriated to my use in the dwelling of Farmer Judson, where I was employed as "chore boy," or, in other words, ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... generosity and loyalty to Pee-wee's prowess she never reminded him or even thought of the things she could do which he could not. She would not do her little optional chore of milking a cow for fear he might perceive her superiority in this little item of proficiency. Poor girl, she was a ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... squeaked suddenly. This was not one of the highly-placed astronomers, but part of the mechanical staff who'd been willing to do an unreasonable chore ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... no doubt, in part from the want of that academic culture and thorough technical equipment which Lowell and Longfellow enjoyed. Though his poems are not in dialect, like Lowell's Biglow Papers, he knows how to make an artistic use of homely provincial words, such as "chore," {524} which give his idyls of the hearth and the barnyard a genuine Doric cast. Whittier's prose is inferior to his verse. The fluency which was a besetting sin of his poetry when released from the fetters of rhyme and meter ran into wordiness. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Jerry had a broom in his hand. His orders were to sweep off the front steps. He went at it in a very leisurely manner. The sooner he finished the sooner his mother might give him some other chore to do. Even though Laura, the pleasant three-times-a-week maid, did most of the cleaning, Mrs. Martin believed her children should have a few household chores. Cathy, Jerry's twin sister, had to do the breakfast dishes ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... to regard dish-washing merely as an ignoble chore, a kind of hateful discipline which had to be undergone with knitted brow and brazen fortitude. When my wife went away the first time, I erected a reading stand and an electric light over the sink, and used ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... brother, of a clever chi like me to take care of him and his childer. I tell you what, brother, I will chore, if necessary, and tell dukkerin for Sylvester, if even so heavy as scarcely to be able to stand. You call him lazy; you would not think him lazy if you were in a ring with him: he is a proper man with ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... than ever. He was utterly neglected. He was sent to no school, taught nothing, allowed to make no friends. And at last Mr. Murdstone, as if he could think of nothing worse, apprenticed him as a chore boy in a ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... Astro slowly, "that you wouldn't stand much of a chance with me, Manning. So if Tom wants the chore of buttoning your lip, he's ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... that he regretted not being able to go to Wakefield to meet Kate, but that he would be busy in the north field all day. Hi Holler, the Bartlett chore boy, had been commissioned to go in his stead, and Hi's toilet, in consequence, had occupied most ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... forget caste consciousness. Count Bernstorff has had none of the patent heavy regard for himself that makes three-quarters of official Germany a chore to meet. 'I'll put you through' the little telephone girl, at his favorite New York hotel used to say promptly, when his Excellency was asked for, and knew that she ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... longer than was necessary. Her husband found his office—which he kept in as bad a state as possible in order to maintain an equilibrium in his life—much more comfortable than the stiffly clean house at home. From the time that Ralph had come to live as a chore-boy at his uncle's, he had ever crossed the threshold of Aunt Matilda's temple of cleanliness with a horrible sense of awe. And Walter Johnson, her son by a former marriage, had—poor, weak-willed fellow!—been driven into bad company and bad habits by the wretchedness ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston |
