"Duster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had got it perfectly smooth and flat. Then she went about the room downstairs, put each chair back in its place, and if she found anything lying about she put it in the cupboard. After that she fetched a duster, climbed on a chair, and rubbed the table till it shone again. When the grandfather came in later he would look round well pleased and say to himself, "We look like Sunday every day now; Heidi did not go abroad ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... faith, death, so far as it is his own death, ceases to possess any quality of terror. The experiment will be over, the rinsed beaker returned to its shelf, the crystals gone dissolving down the waste-pipe; the duster sweeps the bench. But the deaths of those we love are harder to ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... wait for Di in any case—they always had to wait for Di—and at last, hardly believing in her own motions, Lulu was running to make ready. Mrs. Bett hurried to help her, but she took down the wrong things and they were both irritated. Lulu reappeared in the linen duster and a wide hat. There had been no time to "tighten up" her hair; she was flushed at the adventure; she had never looked ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... contorted from its proper shape. Ugly as he was, there was a marked expression of vigour about his face; but in direct contrast to M. Gosselin, he was deplorably lacking in cleanliness. While he was lecturing he would use his old cloak and the sleeves of his cassock as if it were a duster to wipe up anything; and his skull-cap, lined with cotton wool to protect him from neuralgia, formed a very ugly border round his head. With all that he was full of passion and eloquence, somewhat sarcastic at times, but witty and incisive. He had little ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... sometimes as a heavy sea is coming the kitchen is hastily closed lest the waves should invade it, but the lamp may still be heard roaring away inside all the same. An iron enamelled plate and a duster complete the furniture of our little scullery, all the rest of the things we started with having been improved out of existence, for simplicity is the heart of invention as brevity is ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... I dusted, looking all the time as if he had just taken a dose of medicine. So I often do a few books at a time, as I can, when he is not in the way to be worried with it. But he always knows where I have been with my duster and long-haired brush. And now it came across me that I had better dust some books first of all, as it was a good chance, he being sound asleep. So I lighted my lamp, went straight to the study, and began where I last ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... quiet, unaffected country girl. She was also an extremely pretty girl, and when a very pretty girl—and sensible and unaffected and the rest—makes you her confidant and asks your advice concerning her love affair and her heart's most precious secrets, even a middle-aged "mummy duster," whose interest in the female sex has, until very recently, centered upon specimens of that sex who have been embalmed several thousand years—even such a one cannot help being gratified ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... people, and nowhere the shout and cry of a baby. There was nobody to be anxious about,—nobody gone away or coming home, or to be wept for, or to be joyful for;—only their two stupid selves. Madam pottering about the great house, dusting with a feather duster all the knick-knacks that she had brought home from Europe, and that she might have just as well bought in New York after she got home; and he putting up books and taking them down, riding out on his white horse, and having somebody to dine once in a while,—could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... up her duster. "Well, lad, thee says so. Daily savin' of the cents got it. Maybe thee thought me a hard woman?"—with an anxious look. "I kept all the accounts of it in that blue book I burned to-night. Nobody must know what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... bullocks— The streets were all of mosaic, thousands of little stones being packed together like corn on a cob. Over this the heavy sledge was drawn by the bullocks while a small boy ran ahead through the narrow streets to clear the way— He had a feather duster made of horse's tail as a badge of authority and he yelled some strange cry at the empty streets and closed houses. Another little boy in a striped jersey ran beside and assured us he was a guide. It was like a page out of a fairy story. The strange ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... to eat, anyhow," he said aloud as he recovered his balance with the aid of the dashboard, disentangled his feet from the long skirts of his linen duster and sprang over the wheel with the alacrity of a man who took ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... inseparable from age in a letter is accentuated by rubbing it lightly with a dirty duster. The effect is usually obvious under a strong glass, the passage of the dirty cloth revealing itself in ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... to rub out with the duster all the questions but the first. Then she turned over the leaves of a Bible, wetting her thumb for that purpose, seized the pointer, and took her stand ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... by a persistent silence, which it was impossible to break. Then there would be periods of frenzied industry. Mademoiselle would hear through the partitions on all sides furious manipulation of the broom and duster, the sharp, vicious scrubbing and slamming of the servant whom one imagines muttering to herself as she maltreats the furniture: "Oh! yes, I'll do ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... varies greatly. Most sorts are next to worthless, but a few of the brands especially prepared for this work (and sold usually at $3 per hundred pounds, which will last two ordinary home gardens a whole season) are very convenient to use, and effective. Apply with a duster, like that described ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... stove-lighter, his washer and wringer, cook, errand-maid, and general lion's-provider, and for the rest a very orderly creature, had no sovereign authority in this last citadel of Teufelsdroeckh; only some once in the month she half-forcibly made her may thither, with broom and duster, and (Teufelsdroeckh hastily saving his manuscripts) effected a partial clearance, a jail-delivery of such lumber as was not literary. These were her Erdbeben (earthquakes), which Teufelsdroeckh dreaded worse than the pestilence; nevertheless, to such length ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... could be no questioning the right of the senior of the two officers who had alighted at Sancho's to the title of colonel. Soldier stood out all over him, even though his garb was concealed by a nondescript duster. His face, lined, thin-lipped and resolute, was tanned by desert suns and winds. His hair, once brown, was almost white. His beard, once flowing and silky, was cropped to a gray stubble. His steely blue eyes snapped under their heavy thatch, his head was carried high and well ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... Tartarin took a steel-pointed knuckle-duster; in the right he carried a sword-cane; in his left pocket a life-preserver; in the right a revolver. On his chest, betwixt outer and under garment, lay a Malay kreese. But never any poisoned arrows—they are weapons altogether ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... possible. The hostesses costume can be combinations of several, as a decollete corsage, short walking skirt, one high-heeled slipper and one bedroom slipper, one side of her hair braided and hanging down and the other piled up high and decorated with feathers from the duster. Or she can dress as "Folly" with pointed black velvet bodice, white blouse, red and yellow striped skirts, pointed cap and wear a small black masque covering the upper part of the face, and carry a stick wound with red and yellow ribbon with tiny bells ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... expensive material, but cut after a style more prononce than was then seen in Canada, or has ever since been much in vogue here. His hat was a broad-brimmed Panama, which cost twenty dollars if it cost a penny. His coat, so far as could be seen under his thin summer duster—was of fine bluish cloth, short of waist, long of skirt, and—the duster notwithstanding—plentifully besprinkled and travel-stained with dust. The waistcoat, which seemed to be of the same material as the coat, was very open-breasted, ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... in his chair, snored a little; the canary answered with a shrill lullaby. Pyecroft picked up the duster, threw it over the cage, put his finger to his lips, and we tiptoed out into the shop, while Leggatt brought ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... Clump's report, her distress was very great. As she groaned, and wiped her wet, shrivelled eyes with a duster, she said— ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... men. The end of it was that, after pawning my revolver and my top-boots, the only valuable possessions I had left, to pay for my lodging, I was thrown on the street, and told to come back when I had more money. That night I wandered about New York with a gripsack that had only a linen duster and a pair of socks in it, turning over in my mind what to do next. Toward midnight I passed a house in Clinton Place that was lighted up festively. Laughter and the hum of many voices came from within. I listened. They spoke French. ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... they saw Miss Reed's eyes looking towards them, trying to pierce the muslin. Mrs Griffith motioned the two men out of the room, and hurriedly put antimacassars on the chairs. The knock was repeated, and Mrs Griffith, catching hold of a duster, went ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... was in a decline, used to have snail-oil rubbed into her back," said Luce, the maid, who had been standing in the doorway with a duster. ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... well. On that deck, and gliding placidly among those honorable and properly upholstered groups, appeared Thompson, young, grave, long, slim, with an aged fuzzy plug hat towering high on the upper end of him and followed by a gray duster, which flowed down, without break or wrinkle, to his ankles. He came straight to us, and shook hands and compromised us. Everybody could see that we knew him. A nigger in heaven could not have created ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of it!" declared Molly; "if I only had a decent broom instead of this old stub! Now, I'll sweep, Mopsy, and you find something that'll do for a duster, and we'll straighten up the place in ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... if afraid of being observed. I entered without knocking. There never was such a dreary, dismal scene as the formerly cheerful house presented! I must confess, that if I had been in the young lady's place, I would, at least, have swept the hearth, and wiped the tables with a duster. But she already partook of the pervading spirit of neglect which encompassed her. Her pretty face was wan and listless; her hair uncurled: some locks hanging lankly down, and some carelessly twisted round her head. Probably she had not touched her dress since yester evening. Hindley was not there. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... long in taking off my jacket. I laid aside my useless gun, dropping it upon one of the lower terraces. I caught the jacket by the collar; and, using it as a duster, I cleared the sides of the cone in a few moments, having sent thousands of ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... we must paggle Monday up to here." Miss Arkwright indicates the exact high-water mark sanctioned, candidly. "Wiv no sooze, and no stottins!" She then becomes diffuse. "And my bid sister Totey's doll came out in my bed, and Dane dusted her out wiv a duster. And I can do thums. And they make free...." At this point Miss Arkwright's copy runs short, and she seizes the opportunity for a sort of seated dance of satisfaction at her own eloquence—a kind of ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... course her first thought, after which she could not avoid that of work. It made her very miserable, but she feared the consequences of being found with it undone. A few minutes before noon, she actually got up, took her pinafore for a duster, and proceeded to dust the table. But the wood-ashes flew about so, that it seemed useless to attempt getting rid of them, and she sat down again to think what was to be done. But there is very little indeed to be done when we will not do that which ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... said Miss North; "but never mind; stay, if you want to." She tried to smile, but she looked at the duster which she had put down upon Mrs. ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... Bardell, approaching the duster very near to Mr. Pickwick's elbow, which was planted on the table; 'that depends a good deal upon the person, you know, Mr. Pickwick; and whether it's a saving and ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... in waiting line, the register clerk stood fingering the leaves of the register with a gracious air. A noise is heard outside, the big door opens, there is a rush forward, and four people flock in a man in a linen duster, a stout woman, a lad of ten, a smartly dressed young lady, and a dog. Movement, welcome, ringing of bells, tramping of feet—the whole machinery has started. It was adjusted to crack an egg-shell or smash an iron-bound trunk. The ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... only an hour of noon, when the young wife's delicate, slender figure, carrying a white duster in her hand, entered the burgomaster's study. Here she stationed herself at the window, from which the pouring rain streamed in numerous crooked serpentine lines, pressed her forehead against the panes, and gazed down into the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... mustn't be snub-nosed, and he absolutely must be dark-complexioned. It's understood, of course, that he must be dressed like the men in the magazines. [She glances at the mirror] Oh, Lord, my hair looks like a feather-duster to-day! ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... enough to buy a little solid food, and secured a pass to Louisville. I had a companion with me who was also out of a job. I arrived at Louisville on a bitterly cold day, with ice in the gutters. I was wearing a linen duster and was not much to look at, but got a position at once, working on a press wire. My travelling companion was less successful on account of his 'record.' They had a limit even in those days when the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... It dries a pleasing brown, not unlike old oak. The only objection to its use that he has discovered is that it smells strongly, though not unpleasantly, for about a fortnight. One coat is quite sufficient, and after a few days you may rub the shelves with an old duster to remove any of the solution that ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... departments, with the utmost faithfulness and excellence; and this department was supported by the Crown Princess. As we passed from the bathing-department, we met a sweet-faced nurse going out, who immediately returned with us, throwing off her alpaca duster, and showing, unasked, her private rooms to the unexpected American visitors with the greatest cordiality and the most ladylike grace. Refinement and perfect order characterized the rooms. There were closets with shelves filled with bed-linen ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... a combination of a spread-eagle and a "hydriad," surrounded by the stars and stripes. These things lift him above the level of those who would naturally be his peers, and effect his purpose. The motorer sports his car duster on all possible occasions, and thinks his goggles are necessary to protect his eyes from the glare of the sun on the deck of the steamer. He has large studs of motors, and always proposes to keep in front of the main squeeze. The chatter relating to cars and ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... room, and again make a knot to mark the width. Then she hastily gathered up the string, pulled the brad awl from the woodwork, and put them in her pocket. While she had been carrying this out she retained a duster in one hand, and dusted the wood work as she moved along, trusting that if Miss Penfold should look in, the string, which was of a dark color, would be unnoticed by her. However she gave a sigh of relief when the operation was complete, and the string and brad ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... you did not, for a duster would have swept away these shreds of varnish. Who has the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... simpatico. At times, indeed, the conduct of Lucy and Eliza was so peculiarly horrible and blood-curdling in its atrocity, that even I, their best friend, who had so often interceded for their lives and saved them from the devastating duster of the aggressive housemaid—even I myself, I say, more than once debated in my own mind whether I was justified in letting them go on any longer in their career of crime unchecked, or whether I ought not rather to rush out at once, avenging rag in hand, and ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... pair of handcuffs which are too small or too large; and when the latter is the case, and the prisoner gets the "bracelets" in his hands instead of on his wrists, he is then in possession of a knuckle-duster from which the bravest would not care ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... tall, smooth-faced dawdles; I never could discover which held the superior station in the menage. Each has been seen trotting home from market with a basket on her arm; each might be observed to shake a duster out of the upper windows; each would, occasionally, carry a huge bunch of keys, or wait at table during dinner; and, in the summer evenings, when it was not post-day, both of them would appear, dressed alike, sitting ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... half frantic. But no; though it was her best china, she stopped the Major's apologies, and assured him, with something almost like laughter, that it was not of the slightest consequence. "Tea doesn't stain; I hope it has not gone on your coat;" and producing a duster from the cupboard, the evil, save the loss of the crockery, was remedied in a ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... back was almost black with dust and age. They wiped it carefully with a duster, and took ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... about him shall cluster, Pluck the white feathers from bonnet and fan, Make him a plume like a turkey-wing duster,— That is the crest for the ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... frightened her as a child. And last of all, perhaps because without knowing it she had reached a great tree and sunk in a little heap at its foot, came the picture of a sallow youth in eye-glasses and a linen duster, who had once, ages ago, crashed through some ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... the duster occasionally, in alternation with the paint-brush and the pen, she has now a new choice of weapons; and as for models,—her friends, her neighbours, even her enemies and rivals, might admire her ingenuity, her thrift, and her ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in my study. It is very cold; Madame Menin, my housekeeper, has let the fire out. Hallo! she has left her duster, too, lying on the manuscript ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... other a fiery face she fanned; A Yankee with a soft felt hat; A Coptic priest from Ararat; An English girl with cheeks of rose; A Nihilist with Socratic nose; Paddy from Cork with baggage light And pockets stuffed with dynamite; A haughty Southern Readjuster, Wrapped in his pride and linen duster; Two noisy New York stockbrokers, And twenty British globe-trotters. To my disgust and vast surprise, They turned on me lack-lustre eyes, And each with dropped and wagging jaw Burst out into a wild guffaw: They laughed with huge mouths opened wide; They ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... outside; but the girls did not mind it now, for they had an idea, which had come perhaps to both at the same moment. Hilda looked about for a broom, and finally found the dilapidated skeleton of one. Rose, realizing at once that search for a duster would be fruitless, pulled a double handful of long grass from the front yard, and the two laid about them,—one vigorously, the other carefully and thoroughly. Dust flew from doors and windows; the girls sneezed and coughed, but persevered, till the little room at last began to look ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... style of parted hair, with cascade of curls each side, riotous curling locks outlining face, with one or two ringlets brought in front of ears, and the Psyche knot (which later in Victorian days lent itself to caricature, in a feather-duster effect at crown of head), were inspired by those curled and gilded creations such ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... may celebrate the advent of the first gust of wind. He drops the lower bolts of the doors, so that they may rake up the matting every time they are opened. Then he proceeds to dust the furniture with the duster which hangs over his shoulder. He does this because it is his duty, and with no view to any practical result; consequently it never occurs to him to look at what he is doing, and you will afterwards find curiously shaped patches of dust which have escaped the ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... running whether Penelope had had her oats at two o'clock, because on one occasion Jacquelin was a trifle late. Her narrow imagination spent itself on trifles. A layer of dust forgotten by the feather-duster, a slice of toast ill-made by Mariette, Josette's delay in closing the blinds when the sun came round to fade the colors of the furniture,—all these great little things gave rise to serious quarrels in which mademoiselle grew angry. "Everything was changing," she would cry; ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... table-cloth, and often left the marks of his claws all over it; so she feared her mistress would insist on her changing the cloth. As this young woman especially disliked extra work, she used to frighten Robinette nearly out of his senses by shaking her duster at him and pretending to ...
— The Story of a Robin • Agnes S. Underwood
... positive advantage that the work should be done thus cleanly, because if a spot of wax is dropped on the surface of the glass that is to be painted on, the spot must be carefully scraped off and every vestige of it removed with a wet duster dipped in a little grit of some kind—pigment does well—otherwise the glass is greasy and the painting will ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... her employment of wiping the furniture of the room with a duster for some minutes, during which I did not speak, but watched the floating ice on the river. "Well," said Mary, "do you always talk as you do now? if so, you'll be a very nice companion. Mr Turnbull who came to my father, told me that ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... provide bread and jam for you, indeed! Well, we'll very soon see! Take that!" and he struck the flies such a heavy blow with a duster that no fewer than seven lay dead upon the table, while the others flew up to the ceiling in ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... like the siren of Hook and Ladder Company Number One that used to go tearing about the streets in Leesville, U.S.A; a light flashed in one of the sheds, and everything disappeared in a burst of smoke, which spread itself in the air like a huge duster made from turkey feathers. There came another shriek, a little nearer, and the ground rose in a huge black mushroom, which boiled and writhed like the clouds of an advancing thunderstorm. Boom! Boom! Two vast, all-pervading roars came to Jimmie's ears; and his ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... soubrette of a somewhat hooligan type, and pretended to throw a little feather duster she was holding into the depths of ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... the servant, unconsciously holding the feather duster as a soldier holds his rifle; "madame has heard about our great discoveries in artillery? They are revo—revolutionizing—oof! What a mouthful—the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... what brings you here at all?' And she whips out her duster an' hot the poor Spider such a crack that his web was destroyed on him altogether, an' it was on'y by the greatest good luck he was able to creep out of her way behind the corner of the frame, or she'd have had him killed as well. Well, the poor fellow, there he sat the whole ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... recognize her. Her face was quite red from the sun and she had on a fetching little close-fitting motor-bonnet with fluttering lavender strings. A long lemon-coloured duster enveloped the rest of her. She was quite pretty, with the contrast of colour, with her hair all snugly tucked away. It did not look like Mary Louise, but it was. He felt very conscious of his dusty old suit and his wilting collar and ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... in," he said; and jumping up he got out a feather duster and whisked off a chair for Rosalind, remarking that dust didn't ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... truly. What unexpected failures have we seen, literally, in this respect! How often did the Martha blur the Mary out of the face of a lovely woman at the sound of a crash amid glass and porcelain! What sad littleness in all the department thus represented! Obtrusion of the mop and duster on the tranquil meditation of a husband and brother. Impatience if the carpet be defaced by the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... thing—to illustrate, to elaborate, to criticise and illuminate, and make ever plainer and plainer the significance of animal and vegetable structure. It dealt from floor to ceiling and end to end with the Theory of the Forms of Life; the very duster by the blackboard was there to do its share in that work, the very washers in the taps; the room was more simply concentrated in aim even than a church. To that, perhaps, a large part of its satisfyingness was due. Contrasted with the confused ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... her work, listening with absolute faith and the deepest interest to the stream of narrative which flowed on without interruption, no matter what Harriet was doing. Sometimes, when she was dusting the drawing-room mantelpiece, she would pause with a china cup in one hand and her duster in the other, to emphasise a thrilling incident, or make a speech impressive with suitable gesticulation; and sometimes, for the same purpose, she would stop with her hand on the yellowstone with which she was rubbing the kitchen-hearth, and her head in the grate ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... wild and very sweet. She went singing about her work. She felt important and grown- up, extraordinarily light-hearted too. The things she sang made up their own words—such odd snatches that came she knew not whence. An insect clung to her duster, and she shook it out of the window with the crumbs and bits of cotton gathered ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... particularly satisfactory. These men were "angels of God" who required this infamy for their protection! If it takes all the honor out of a man when he gets to be an angel, they may use my wings for a feather-duster. ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... Enter GLADYS wearing linen duster and dragging a big rope to which is attached a case of beer with about eight empty bottles ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... day, indeed, since your daughter's sacrifice to a barbarian, if that is what you mean," returned Mata, with a belligerent flourish of her paper duster. ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... chain of native Trichinopoly-work, with a neat sliding clasp of two cannons and an empty asumamma, or talisman-case. The bracelets were of Popo-beads and thick gold-wire curiously twisted into wreath-knots. Each finger bore a ring resembling a knuckle-duster, three mushroom-like projections springing ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... old newspapers and magazines between the cupboard and the wall, throwing the litter in the grate, which was clear, Friday having been charwoman's day, passing swiftly, lightly over the front of the furniture with the duster. It was Saturday, when she did not spend much time over the work. In the afternoon she was going out with Vera. That was not, however, what occupied her mind as she brushed aside her work. She had determined to have a settlement with Siegmund, as to how matters should ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... window after Saturday's breakfast is altogether changed. The tradesmen's families have all come back again. The serious stationer's young woman of all work is shaking a duster out of the window of the combination breakfast-room; a child is playing with a doll, where Mr. Thurtell's hair was brushed; a sanitary scrubbing is in progress on the spot where Mr. Palmer's braces were put on. No signs of the Races are in the streets, ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... pounds on the surface, in the very wheel-tracks. Handsome hedges of the wild pine, the aloe, and the Spanish bayonet line the road, where an occasional royal palm, the emblem of majesty, stands alone, adding grandeur to all the surroundings. If you drive out to Cerro, put on a linen duster; otherwise you will be likely to come back looking like a miller's apprentice. Not far beyond Cerro there lies some beautiful country, reached by the same miserable road. Puentes Grandes, a small village near the falls of the Almendares River, is but two miles further north than Cerro, and adjoining ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... daughter-in-law than a wife, by a long shot. Claude's more of a fool than I thought him." He picked up his hat and strolled down to the barn, but his wife did not recover her composure so easily. She left the chair where she had hopefully settled herself for comfort, took up a feather duster and began moving distractedly about the room, brushing the surface of the furniture. When the war news was bad, or when she felt troubled about Claude, she set to cleaning house or overhauling the closets, thankful to ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... a fat country man with a linen duster and whiskers and baggy umbrella. Patsy Moriarty (Patrici really. Did you ever hear such a name? Mrs. Lippett couldn't have done better) who is tall and thin was Julia's wife in a absurd green bonnet over one ear. Waves of laughter followed them the whole length of the course. Julia played the ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... teachers and children, enlivening all by his encouragement and cheerfulness. He was a martinet on one question, and that was cleanliness, and its kindred virtue, orderliness. He was never above working with mop, broom and duster indoors, and shovel and rake in the garden; and this trait added much to the appearance of things as well as to the comfort of all concerned in the use of ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... speak to me, and glancing down toward the other end of the table, he asked: "Is n't that old Harris of Tennessee?" When I replied that it was, he continued: "Well, well! The last time I saw him, he was wearing a linen- duster, riding a mule, and going ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... her, and, as a matter of course, began to sweep up the littered floor. Mrs. Lang opened her mouth to tell her to stop, then apparently thought better of it, and let her go on. The kitchen swept, Jessie asked for a duster to dust the chairs and other things, which ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... noon—Long Jim brought home from the post-office a letter for Polly, addressed in her sister Sarah's sloping hand. Knowing the pleasure it would give her, Mahony carried it at once to his wife; and Polly laid aside broom and duster and ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Gray with nods or shakes of her head. The most that he could elicit from her were brief "yeps" and "nopes." It was not unlike a "spirit reading," or a ouija-board seance. He told himself, in terms of the oil fields, that here was a dry well—that the girl was a "duster." Having exhausted the usual commonplace topics in the course of a monologue that induced no reaction whatever, he voiced a perfectly natural remark about the wonder of sudden riches. He was, in a way, thinking aloud of the changes wrought in drab lives like the Briskows' ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... My duster is honest cotton; the hand that holds it is at least clean; and the energy of the rubbing is inspired solely by the hope that such labour may be of some benefit ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... Street in the city of Saint Louis, with a friend, not long ago, my comrade suddenly stopped and excitedly pointed out a man across the way—"Look quick—there he goes!" exclaimed my friend, "that man with the derby and duster—see? That's the husband of Mrs. Lease of Kansas!" And all I could say was, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... my room, I opened the door to see a pitcher of hot water sitting before it, and on a chair beside it, a new comb, a clean linen duster, and a pocket handkerchief. A brief note told me that I would find breakfast in the dining-room, and requested that I leave word on the table saying at what time I would be in for luncheon. Decidedly the mystery deepened—for not a sound could ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... then the rays Round her soft Theban tissues! All will be as She says, When that dead past reissues. Matters not what nor where, Hark, to the moon's dim cluster! How was her heavy hair Lithe as a feather duster! Matters not when nor whence; Flittertigibbet! Sounds make the song, not sense, ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... sullenly at the enormous wardrobe and dressing-table with their speckled mirrors. These had delighted her at first, but in her heart she preferred the battered, makeshift furniture of Cardigan Street. A few licks with the duster and her work was done; but here the least speck of dust showed on the polished surface. Jonah, too, had got into a nasty habit of writing insulting words on the dusty ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... is in another, it will cause it to smoke and burn badly. The lamp should then be filled with oil from a feeder and afterward well wiped with a cloth or rag. Small sticks, covered with wash-leather pads, are the best things to use for cleaning the inside of the chimney, and a clean duster for polishing the outside. Chimneys should not be washed. The globe of a lamp should be occasionally washed in warm soap-and-water, then well rinsed in cold water, and either wiped dry or left ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... spends most of his time riding up and down the elevator, seeking for letters and dusting them off with a feather duster. In large and wealthy offices the compositor sits at his case with the copy before him, and has five or six boys running from one floor to another, bringing him the letters of this ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... head. "Want a table cover, nice as Aunt Em'ly," he answered. "Going to set a flower on the table too!" he added, and ran out of the room. When he came back he had a flower-pot in his hand half the size of his house, with a duster feather stuck in the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... duster, which had hung in the office closet since Adam Ward's day, to cover her from chin to shoes, and a cap that John himself often wore about the plant, to replace ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... hesitation, trying to recall that day's momentous happenings; "there were two people. They were strangers. I think they had been in an automobile, for the girl was dressed like a motor girl, and the young man wore a long duster." ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... man in a duster fidgeted among the crowd, explaining and protesting, and a strident voiced girl, his companion, supported his argument, declaring to everyone her willingness to offer testimony in any court of law that every blessed word he said was the ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... indifferent point of view. He called himself a pauper with a pedigree. He abandoned the entire direction of his household to the slatternly old woman who was his only servant, on the condition that she was never to venture near his books, with a duster in her hand, from one year's end to the other. His favorite poets were Horace and Pope; his chosen philosophers, Hobbes and Voltaire. He took his exercise and his fresh air under protest; and always walked the same distance to a yard, on the ugliest high-road in the neighborhood. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... remain with old sheets or large squares of common unbleached cotton cloth, kept for this purpose. If the furniture is rep or woolen of any description, dust about each button, that no moth may find lodgment, and then cover closely. A feather duster, long or short, as usually applied, is the enemy of cleanliness. Its only legitimate use is for the tops of pictures or books and ornaments; and such dusting should be done before the room is swept, as well as afterward, the first one removing the heaviest coating, which ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... however, the forlorn aspect of the room assisted to raise her spirits. It looked as though there might very well be a niche in such a household that she could fill. Mentally she proceeded to make a tour of the room, duster in hand, and she had just reached the point where, in imagination, she was about to place a great bowl of flowers in the middle desert of the table, when the elderly Abigail re-appeared and dumped a tea-tray down in front ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... muttered the scout. "Did you ever see a skunk-trap? Oughts is for mush-rats, and number ones is mostly used for 'coons and 'possums, and I guess they'd do for a skunk. But you and we'll call this here trap a number two, Duster, for the skunk I'm after is a big one. All you've to do is to ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... he would say with imperturbable good-nature,—"really, I am too forgetful. I must have a self-regulating machine attached to my movements,—a portable duster and hat-catcher. But, the blessed freedom of home. It constitutes half its joy. Dear me! I would not exchange the privilege of doing as I please for the emperorship of the ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... oilcloth (about twenty inches long) is a useful appendage to a common sitting-room. Kept in the closet, it can be available at any time, in order to place upon it jars, lamps, &c., whose contents are likely to soil your table during the process of emptying or filling them. A wing and duster are ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... said duster was of the finest cambric; so that Alec could not help seeing that she was making game of him. This banished his shyness, and put him on ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... substitute had, for some reason or other, intrusted the keys of the wine-cellar to one of the house-maids; and that that industrious person had seized the opportunity to tilt up all the port-wine she could lay her hands on in order to polish the bottles with a duster. ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... Mickey drew the duster he handled between vacuum days across a table and steadily watched first Douglas, then Leslie, both of ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the wide, carpeted steps of the library ladder and seated himself on the topmost one, at right angles to a topmost shelf the contents of which he proposed to investigate, duster and note-book in hand. The vast perspective of the gallery lengthened out before him, cool, faint-tinted, full of a diffused and silvery light. The self-coloured, unpainted paneling of the walls and bookcases—but one shade warmer in tone than that of the stone mullions and transomes ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... day, some hours after sunrise. A man of rather gentlemanly appearance, well, though not handsomely dressed, is riding leisurely along the public highway. He wears a broad-brimmed straw hat as a protection from the sun, and a linen duster somewhat soiled by the dust of travel. He has a shrewd though not unkindly face, and a keen grey eye whose quick glances seem to take in everything within its ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... of Salvation. The Codpiece of the Law. The Slipshoe of the Decretals. The Pomegranate of Vice. The Clew-bottom of Theology. The Duster or Foxtail-flap of Preachers, composed by Turlupin. The Churning Ballock of the Valiant. The Henbane of the Bishops. Marmotretus de baboonis et apis, cum Commento Dorbellis. Decretum Universitatis Parisiensis super gorgiasitate muliercularum ad placitum. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... have been done in his absence by one of his assistants." [558] And Eha describes the same custom in the following amusing manner: "Did you ever open your handkerchief with the suspicion that you had got a duster into your pocket by mistake, till the name of De Souza blazoned on the corner showed you that you were wearing some one else's property? An accident of this kind reveals a beneficent branch of the Dhobi's business, one in which he comes to the relief of needy respectability. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... came. But a little before noon, Thursday, Doan came. Came by automobile from the railroad, a man with him. Steve saw them as they drove into town; he noted Doan's thin face and his tall form in the gray linen duster; then he marked the man with him. The ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... iron-gray hair and a mustache and pointed goatee of the same shade. He was hanging his hat on the carved mahogany rack in the hall when Jincy, a young colored maid, came from the main drawing-room on the right. She had a feather duster in her hand and wore a turban- like head-cloth, a neat black dress, and a ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... Family had gradually faded, and she accepted the less rose-coloured lot that Mr. Lyman B. Rattray offered her, sitting in her father's study, with his hair very much brushed up on one side and very much flattened down on the other, a white tie and light-yellow duster adorning his ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... through a "Mizpah" ring, a white straw hat with a blue ribbon, and two finger-rings set with sham diamonds—altogether the sort of outfit that its owner would probably have described as "rather nobby." Feeling that just now it needed a few repairs, he opened the bag, pulled out a duster and flicked away for half-a-minute at his brown boots. Next with a handkerchief he mopped his face and wiped round the inner edge first of his straw hat, and then of his collar and cuffs. After this he stood ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... good sign," says another writer, "when girlish voices carol over the steaming dish-pan or the mending-basket, when the broom moves rhythmically, and the duster flourishes in time to some brisk melody. We are sure that the dishes shine more brightly, and that the sweeping and dusting and mending are more satisfactory because of this running accompaniment of song. Father smiles ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... remarked in my presence. "To think that a thinking being has to be beholden to a thing like that for his weekly income! Somebody ought to tap him with a feather-duster and kill him!" ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... silence for a minute or two, and coming to the fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while she rubbed it on a board and dusted it with a duster, but said nothing until she had returned to her table again: when, holding the iron at an alarmingly short distance from her cheek, to test its temperature, and looking round with a ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... her head in through the portieres again, and follows it with her arm and hand, in which is a feather duster, which she waves wildly in an endeavor to ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... inner consciousness of duty well done and services faithfully rendered, our friend from the hotel flicks off our seats in the car with the tail of his long linen duster. Not that they need dusting; but as a gentle reminder of the extraordinary care he has bestowed upon us, in little things as well as in bigger, during our brief acquaintance with him, he dusts them off. That last attentive flick of his coat-tail is the finishing touch ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... gambling experiences I passed through all the states and conditions that a gambler is heir to. Some days found me able to peel ten and twenty-dollar bills from a roll, and others found me clad in a linen duster and carpet slippers. I finally caught up another method of earning money, and so did not have to depend entirely upon the caprices of fortune at the gaming table. Through continually listening to the music at the "Club," and through my own previous training, my natural talent and perseverance, ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... too sat silent, looking on with brooding eyes. Something seemed to tell them both that trouble was at hand, and when, after the first rush, a single auto rumbled in, Billy rose to her feet apprehensively. A big man with red cheeks, attired in a long linen duster, descended from the curtained machine, and she flew to the side ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... second he followed her, running through the hall and out through the door to the porch; and at the same moment a big red touring car came to a standstill before the house; the chauffeur descended to put on a new tire, and a young girl in motor duster and hood sprang lightly from the tonneau to the tangled grass. As she turned to look at the house she caught ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers |
