"Tidy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... things tidy here a little, and then I'll go. You couldn't give the that three months" pay now, could you? He ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... rise on the far side of the Mangadone Cantonment was the bungalow of Hartley, Head of the Police. It was a tidy, well-kept house, the house of a bachelor who had an eye to things himself and who was well served by competent servants. Hartley had reached the age of forty without having married, and he was solid of build and entirely sensible and practical of mind. He was spoken of as "sound" ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... used in describing apples or potatoes. Hedge-picks, shoes. Hags or aggarts, haws. Rauch, smoke (comp. German and Scotch). Pond-keeper, dragon-fly. Stupid, ill-conditioned. To plim, to swell, as bacon boiled. To side up, to put tidy. ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... ashamed to go with her to the stores or anywhere, or to have her ride in the carriage with me," Gertrude had said to Vi as the little girls were having their hats put on; but Vi answered indignantly, "She's clean and tidy, and she isn't vulgar or rude, and I do believe she's good; and mamma says dress and ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... her blouse too and, as she stood before the mirror, she thought of how she used to dress for mass on Sunday morning when she was a young girl; and she looked with quaint affection at the diminutive body which she had so often adorned, In spite of its years she found it a nice tidy little body. ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... have me a dowd, Olaf?" said she, demurely. "I have to be neat and tidy, you know. You wouldn't have me going about in a continuous state of unbuttonedness and black bombazine ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... he told her. "Two minutes, that is, in which to make yourself tidy before the mirror. A third in which to say good-bye ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... and truthful in all the details of the home life, he may face the world in later years a worthy example of uprightness to all with whom he comes in contact. If he has learned to be habitually kind and courteous in the home, he is the same wherever he may be. If he always appears neat and tidy in the home, these pleasing characteristics will remain with him ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... apples laid carefully in the crates for transportation to the garrets, and on their arrival, as carefully taken out and spread on sheets of grey paper on the floor. When all was done, the girls were marshalled into Gertrude's room to tidy themselves: after which they went down to the dining-room. Mrs Rookwood had provided an excellent dinner for her youthful guests, including geese, venison, and pheasants, various pies and puddings, Muscadel and Canary wines. After dinner they played ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... complacently. "Years hence, when the boy has a forge of his own, he'll thank me for perseverin' with him. There's money to be made in the business. Why, when I began I wasn't worth a hundred dollars, and I owed for my anvil. Now I own this house and shop, and I've got a tidy sum in the bank." ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... singular and effective method, for about nine o'clock my friend Mortimer rushed into my room with an expression of consternation upon his face. He was usually one of the most tidy men of my acquaintance, but now his collar was undone at one end, his tie was flying, and his hat at the back of his head. I read his whole ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... we reunite at the hotel, where Madame greets us graciously. Her visitors will begin to come with the coming week, but we actually have the house to ourselves. In the tidy parlor blazes a wood-fire; out of doors, in the dusk, it has grown a trifle chilly. Attentions are doubled upon us when it is known that we are Americans; Madame's daughter, who has married the chef and will succeed to the inheritance, will succeed to the kindly disposition as well, ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... had a good cleaning out while the Cat was gone, and made the house tidy; but the greedy Cat ate the fat ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... any one.' But all the time they are thinking and watching and planning. 'Here is Egypt weak,' they cry. 'Allons!' and down they swoop like a gull upon a crust. 'You have no right there,' says the world. 'Come out of it!' But England has already begun to tidy everything, just like the good Miss Adams when she forces her way into the house of an Arab. 'Come out,' says the world. 'Certainly,' says England; 'just wait one little minute until I have made everything nice and proper.' So the world waits for a year or so, and ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... bad job, Pavel Ivanich. You get up in the morning, clean the boots, boil the samovar, tidy up the room, and then there is nothing to do. The lieutenant draws plans all day long, and you can pray to God if you like—or read books—or go out into the streets. It's a good ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... was decided. She prepared their Sunday morning breakfast and cooked it quite skillfully. Her appearance was now more tidy and she displayed greater energy than on the previous evening, when doubtless she was weary from her long walk. Mrs. Conant was well pleased with the girl and found the relief from clearing the table and "doing" the dishes very grateful. Their Sunday dinner, which Sarah prepared ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... a heavy leathern bag. "No more toiling in this ruinous old hall, with scanty scraps, hard words, and no wages; but a tidy little homestead, pig, cow, and horse, your own. See here, Deb," and he held ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for more than twenty years. He withdrew his savings from the Explosion City Third Federal Bank, stopped in a display room and informed a somewhat surprised clerk he was taking the electric runabout with the blue bonnet. The ground-car, complete with extras, retailed for a tidy three ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... The lawyer wrote it on a scrap of paper and thrust it carelessly into a pigeon-hole of the old walnut desk. "Well, there ought to be a tidy sum coming to you, sir; yes, sir, a tidy sum. Lumber is fetching money just now, and you tell me the ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... well, Barnabas," he nodded. "You peel like a fighting man, you've a tidy arm an' a goodish spread o' shoulder, likewise your legs is clean an' straight, but your skin's womanish, Barnabas, womanish, an' your muscles soft wi' books. So, lad!—are ye ready? Then ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... "the Dolphin I am speaking of to you, sir, was a pretty fast boat for a paddle-steamer, and had already made some tidy captures of slave-dhows—that is, since she had been commissioned and sent out from England, about six months before, to replace an old sailing brig that formerly did duty on the station as tender to the old London; so I fully expected when I jined her to have some smart work afore ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... smoking-room of the Piccadilly Cabin. Her, I mean, with the fuzzy golden hair done low. You've often exchanged "Good evening" with her, I'm sure. Her hair's done low: she used to make rather a point of telling me that. Why, I don't know, especially as it was always tidy and well ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... would seem to you incredible if I wrote them all down. I cared little in what vessel I ate, or whether I had to tear meat with my fingers. I could march in reserve more than twenty miles a day for day upon day. I knew all about my horses; I could sweep, wash, make a bed, clean kit, cook a little, tidy a stable, turn to entrenching for emplacement, take a place at lifting a gun or changing a wheel. I took change with a gunner, and could point well. And all this was not learnt save under a grinding pressure of ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... once or twice he whistled to him to let him know that he was going all right. But very soon Rube disappeared into the brooding gloom of the canyon, and Kiddie continued with his work until every tin-pot shone like silver and the whole camp was faultlessly tidy. ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... the island—paid him a good stiff price, too—and asked him to put a charm on the plantation. He did it, and those bottles and feathers are some of the charms. We pay for having them renewed every year. It costs a tidy bit, but less than the ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... here," begged Miss Gibbs, who was still endeavouring to make herself tidy. "I'm such a sight, playing with the dog—but you go, Toni ... and p'raps ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... shrugged. "Yoshio has an Oriental imagination and quite a flair for romance. I did pull him out of a hole in 'Frisco but he was putting up a very tidy little show on his own account. He's the toughest little beggar I've ever come across and doesn't know the meaning of fear. If I'm ever in a big scrap I hope I ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... of them, and leave the stalk hanging, and that's all that's left of a fine bunch. Then as to the pease—you like pease, don't you, Master Jack? your grandpa's uncommon fond of 'em—well, I have to sow the pease pretty thick, or, I'll warrant ye, we shouldn't have a tidy row come up at all. I have to dodge about with netting and scarecrows to keep what we do get; for I hate a patchy row, I do. Last winter was a very cold season. I don't know how you found it in London, Master ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... somewhere about him; and that's the reason why he escaped the icebergs, the volcanoes, the cannibals, the subterranean channel monster, and arrived at last safe and sound in the land of the Kosekin. What I want is Grimm's Law—a nice tidy one, well trained, in good working order, and kind in harness; and the moment I get one I intend to go to the land of the ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... Gabrielle Tescheron, I am for giving woman the largest liberty in all matters; let her have suffrage if she will take it. I am for giving woman everything—just let her run loose, here, there and everywhere, and then you'll see the world tidy up. It's time the worldliness of the world was viewed with fresh eyes. Woman, so long held in restraint, in many ways is a better observer than conventional man. She is like a countryman newly arrived in the city. It takes a countryman ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... High Street, than the turning the course of the Thames would do to Westminster and Wapping. Who is to keep the beautiful roads by Henley and High Wickham in repair? And who is to restore a value to the inns at the tidy comfortable towns along the line? Will the prosperity of Steveton bring back the gaieties of Tetsworth or Beaconsfield, and the numerous villages within an easy distance of the road? We repeat it—the towns ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... coffee-cake for the grandmother. An enormous sausage for Peter's mother followed, and a little sack of tobacco for the grandfather. At last a lot of mysterious little parcels and boxes were packed, things that Clara had gathered together for Heidi. When the tidy pack lay ready on the ground, Clara's heart filled with pleasure at the thought of her ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... to comb through Dot's long gleaming curls; but they were so tangled that the child called out at this awkward method of hairdressing, and the Kangaroo stopped. She then licked a black smudge off Dot's forehead, which was all she could do to tidy her. Then she started back a hop, and eyed the child with her head on one side. She was not quite satisfied. "Ah!" she said, "if only you were a baby kangaroo I could make you look so nice! but I can't do ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... makers become in utilizing home commodities, that ladies' hats were made out of wheat, oat, and rice straw. Splendid and serviceable house shoes were made from the products of the loom, the cobbler only putting on the soles. Good, warm, and tidy gloves were knit for the soldier from their home-raised fleece and with a single bone from the turkey wing. While the soldiers may have, at times, suffered for shoes and provisions, still they were fairly well clothed by the industry and patriotism of the women, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... kept the first whale down until it had drowned and, marvelous to relate, we had got the both of them—and a tidy addition to our cargo they proceeded to make. The luck of the second mate's boat ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... I walked over to Deane Hill and surveyed the wonderful panorama of neat country that fills the basin between the Hampden and the Quainton Hills. Seen from that height, it has something the effect of a Dutch landscape, it all looks so amazingly tidy. Away to the left I looked over Stoke-Underhill. Ailesworth was a blur in the hollow, but I could distinguish the high ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... open window came the clear trill of a canary singing blithely in its cage. Within the tidy, homely little room a pale-faced girl and a youth of slender frame listened intently while the bird sang its song. The girl was the first to ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert
... happy—with pictures on the walls and toys in the glass-doored cupboard, and rocking-horse and doll-house, and everything a child's heart could wish for. Spring sunshine faint but clear, like the first pale primrose, peeping in at the window, a merry fire crackling away in the tidy hearth. And just in front of it, for it is early spring only, a group of children pleasant to see. A soft-haired, quiet-eyed little girl, a book open upon her knee, and at each side, nestling in beside her, a cherub-faced dot of a boy, ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... here be candidly stated, that Charlie was not a tidy boy. He despised mats, and seldom or never wiped his feet on entering the house; he was happiest when he could don his most dilapidated unmentionables, as he could then sit down where he pleased without the fear ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... his cap and bobbed his head, and then silently, and with renewed diligence, applied himself to the job which he had in hand. The gate of the little yard in which the cow-shed stood was off its hinges, and Andy was resetting the post and making the fence tight and tidy. Frank stood a moment watching him, and then asked after his health. "'Deed am I nae that to boost about in the way of bodily heelth, Muster Greystock. I've just o'er mony things to tent to, to tent to my ain sell as a prudent mon ought. It's airly an' late wi' me, Muster ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... had expected every Russian to be absorbed in the struggle. It seemed at first as if my notions of what a revolution ought to be were contradicted everywhere. And I assure you it wrenched the imagination to see tidy nursemaids wheeling perambulators and children playing diavolo on the very square where Bloody Sunday had gone into history. It takes a long perspective and no very vivid acquaintance with revolution to be melodramatic about it. So much is left out of history ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... was something beautiful and breakable. Dusk-white face; little tidy nose and mouth; dark hair and eyes like the minnows swimming under the green water. But Jerrold's face was strong; and he had funny eyes that made you keep looking at him. They were blue. Not tiresomely blue, blue all the time, like his mother's, ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... two o'clock in the morning. It was a beautiful, clear, moonlit night, so clear, indeed, that we could see the Dover lights almost from Calais harbor. But we had considerably more than a capful of wind, and there was a turgent ground-swell on, which made our boat—double-engined, and as trim and tidy a craft as ever sped across the span from shore to shore—behave rather lively, with sportive indulgence in a brisk game of pitch-and-toss that proved anything but comfortable to most of ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... thing more than another I enjoy,' she says, 'it's making myself useful. Mrs. Molly, I've taken a fancy to your boy-baby,' she says, 'and I mean to make myself useful to him.' If you will believe me, Miss Jillgall has only let me have one opportunity of putting my own child tidy. She was late this morning, and I got my chance, and had the boy on my lap, drying him—when in she burst like a blast of wind, and snatched the baby away from me. 'This is your nasty temper,' she says; 'I declare I'm ashamed of you!' And ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... unsuitable companion was too great to put up with without necessity. I find now that it was Ellen that made me so busy, and without her to nurse I have plenty of time. I have begun to keep the house very tidy; it makes it less desolate. I take great interest in my trade—as much as I could do in anything that was not all pleasure. But the best part of my life is the excitement of arrivals from England. Reading all the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... planks did not go to pieces above some of the reefs that cut up the North Pacific, was halved between outfitter and crew. If the cargo amounted to half a million dollars in modern money—as one of Drusenin's first trips did—then a quarter of a million was a tidy sum to be divided among a crew of, say, thirty or forty. Often as not, the long-planked single-master fell to pieces in a gale, when the Russians went to the bottom of the sea, or stranded among the Aleutian ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... furniture in the room, however, which were placed with an eye to attract attention, and these the Girl prized most highly: one was a homemade rocking-chair that had been made out of a barrel and had been dyed, unsuccessfully, with indigo blue, and had across its back a knitted tidy with a large, upstanding, satin bow; the other was a homemade, pine wardrobe that had been rudely decorated by one of the boys of the camp and in which the Girl kept her dresses, and was piled up high ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... two horses, and contain a front and a back seat. Others have only one horse, and only a back seat; but they all look very nice and tidy, and the price to be paid for them ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... horses closely, declared that nothing more could be done to them. Then they were saddled, the valises, with a day's provisions and a spare blanket, being strapped on. Then all had a wash, and made themselves, as far as possible, tidy. By this time breakfast was ready, and they had just finished their meal when a party of horsemen were seen in the distance. Rifles were slung over their shoulders, and bandoliers and belts full of cartridges strapped on, and they donned their ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... Clare household. The slaves had been left to themselves so long, and had grown so untidy, that they were not at all pleased with Miss Feely, as they called her, for trying to make them be tidy. However, she had quite made up her mind that order there must be. She got up at four o'clock in the morning, much to the surprise of the housemaids. All day long she was busy dusting and tidying, till Mrs. St. Clare said it made ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... melancholy and sentimental career which drove them—poor young gentlemen—into the hard-hearted navy. Indeed, many of them show tokens of having moved in very respectable society. They always maintain a tidy exterior; and express an abhorrence of the tar-bucket, into which they are seldom or never called to dip their digits. And pluming themselves upon the cut of their trowsers, and the glossiness of their tarpaulins, from the rest of the ship's ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... brisk and busy, The gout is made half easy.") 'O, when,' exclaim'd the sad disease, 'Will this my misery stop? O, sister spider, if you please, Our places let us swop.' The spider gladly heard, And took her at her word,— And flourish'd in the cabin-lodge, Not forced the tidy broom to dodge The gout, selecting her abode With an ecclesiastic judge, Turn'd judge herself, and, by her code, He from his couch no more could budge. The salves and cataplasms Heaven knows, That mock'd the misery of his toes; While aye, without a blush, the curse, Kept ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... odds and ends," the wub said absently, staring around the room. "A nice apartment you have here, Captain. You keep it quite neat. I respect life-forms that are tidy. Some Martian birds are quite tidy. They throw things out of ...
— Beyond Lies the Wub • Philip Kindred Dick
... hastily packed a small hand bag with a few necessities, made a few changes in her garments, then went to see a fellow lodger whom she knew well, and where she felt sure she could easily get a check cashed, for she had a tidy little bank account of her own, and was well known to ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... he groaned. 'Ma aunt!' And proceeded with more haste than alacrity to tidy himself, while wondering what on ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... in the Consul's office this morning," went on Mrs. Van Buren, smiling at her husband's astonishment; "and the Consul said to me, 'Wouldn't you like to have a neat, trim, tidy, honest, faithful, tender-hearted, polite boy to learn general work?' I said to the Consul, 'Yes, that is the person that I have been needing for years.' He said, 'Would you have any prejudice against a little Chinese servant, if he were trusty, ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth
... in this deal? I've lost four thousand dollars' worth of dogs and a tidy bit of a woman, and nothing to show for it. Except you," he added as an afterthought, "and cheap you are ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... "A tidy little sum to retire upon. Would build two thousand Board Schools at a thousand pounds each," said the detective, who was an adept ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... Refuses to discuss his crime, saying it makes him feel bad; talks in a childish, affected tone of voice, and undergoes various grimacing movements; gives frequent evidence of being fully aware of occurrences in his environment; talks and eats voluntarily and is tidy in habits. Occasionally laughs in a silly, affected manner. Flexibilitas cerea and catalepsy entirely disappeared; gained considerably in weight; continues to show marked tendency to be influenced by occurrences in his environment. In general, ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... he was vain, if we tell you that he gave a hasty glance in the glass to see if his hair was tidy, and his face and collar clean. He need scarcely have done so, for it was seldom that either was untidy or dirty; he had so often heard his mother say it was no disgrace to be seen in old clothes, so long as they were well brushed and mended, ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... to tidy up the granary for Arthur. He's offel nice—an' told me about London Bridge—it hasn't fallen down at all, he says, that's just ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... woman bounded down the steps, and charged through the chickens with a bundle of wrappings. She was a smart, tidy little body, with a sharp face and a determined manner. At the sight of her the big man's gloomy face took ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... thoughtful care of Mrs. Jennings had provided. Mrs. Jennings's next thought was to procure a nurse for Hasty. Here she had no difficulty, for the neighbors of Hasty willingly offered their services. Selecting one who appeared thoughtful and tidy, Mrs. Jennings returned home with a heart lightened by a consciousness of duty ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... terminated by shrubbery and hedges alone, the trees originally there having been long since removed to admit of a clear view of the loch, the Argyllshire hills, and the stretch of Firth of Clyde right down to Bute and the Lesser Cumbrae. Even in summer the garden, while scrupulously tidy, would have offered but little colour display; its few flower beds were as stiff in form and conventional in arrangement as a jobbing gardener on contract to an uninterested proprietor could make them. And on this autumn afternoon, when the sun seemed to rejoice coldly over the havoc ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... the travellers' boots and "mitts," and now, without a word or even a look being exchanged upon the subject, she sat there in the corner, by the dim, seal-oil light, sewing on new thongs, patching up holes, and making the strange men tidy—men she had never seen before and would never see again. And this, no tribute to the Colonel's generosity or the youth and friendly manners of the Boy. They knew the old squaw would have done just the same had the mucklucks and the mitts ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... kinds of trees, amongst which flower beds cropped up in most unexpected and unlikely places, just as if some giant had flung them out on the grass like a handful of pebbles that scattered as they flew. They were always trim and tidy, and the gardener, Hogg, was terribly strict, and woe betide the author of any small footmarks that he found on one of the freshly raked surfaces. Nothing annoyed him more than the odd bulbs that used to come up in the midst of his precious buffalo grass; impertinent ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... find them with few exceptions diligently pursuing their vocation, and honourably supporting their families. See them at their homes; you will be gladly welcomed, and you will generally find them striving to have everything clean and tidy, and as comfortable as their means permit. You will find the Bible and a few Christian books on their shelves, and you will learn that family worship is largely observed. When conversing with them you are often ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... has adored. It is doubtless too soon to judge her, and there are moments when one is willing to forgive her even the restoration of St. Mark's. Inside as well there has been a considerable attempt to make the place more tidy; but the general effect, as yet, has not seriously suffered. What I chiefly remember is the straightening out of that dark and rugged old pavement—those deep undulations of primitive mosaic in which the fond spectator was thought ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... she was uneasy in her mind. She mechanically watched the tidy half-breed woman and the elderly Scotchwoman who had been her mother's servant in the old Ontario days, as the two silently went on, at the far end of the long room, with the folding and putting away of linen. Her eyes wandered with an unwonted wistfulness over the picturesque brown slabs of pine ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... might have done all this, if at that time mother hadn't been thrown on her back, and been bedridden ever since. I haven't said much about mother yet, but there all the time she was, just as she is to-day, in her little tidy bed in one corner of the great kitchen, sweet as a saint, and as patient; and I had to come and keep house for father. He never meant that I should lose by it, father didn't; begged, borrowed, or stolen, bought or hired, I should have my books, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... scarf with fringed ends may be placed on the back of a chair or sofa in place of the old lace tidy. A sack made of small pieces of bright-colored plush or silk in crazy work may be flung across the table, the ends drooping very low. The mantelpiece may be covered with a corresponding sash, over which place a small clock ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... know what to-morrow is, Kitty?' Alice began. 'You'd have guessed if you'd been up in the window with me—only Dinah was making you tidy, so you couldn't. I was watching the boys getting in sticks for the bonfire—and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we'll go and see the bonfire ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... ef you loved me; I know I'd be good. What is there in Alison Reed for you nearly to die for her? She aint got my looks, she aint got my eyes, she aint got my bit of money. I'm handsome, and I know it, and I'll have a tidy lot of money when I'm married, for father tells me so. What is Alison compared to me? Oh, nothing, nothing at all! just a mealy-faced, white-cheeked slip of a girl. But somehow or other he loves her, and he don't love me ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... wondered how it would look as one came up the woodland path. She thought it would look rather picturesque. It was a nice heliotrope colour. It would look like a giant Parma violet against the dark green background. She hoped her hair was tidy. And that her hat was not very crooked. However little one desires to attract, one may at least wish one's hat to ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... hallway, which seemed tidy, looked at the Nurse with approval, and then from the doorstep into the patient's room, where Billy Grant sat. At the sight ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... between this place and Tarascon is fertile and well cultivated, and the cheerfulness of its aspect presents a striking contrast to the silence and solitude of the town. The streets, however, are as clean as those of Holland, and the inhabitants are neat and tidy ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... big job, chief, but there is no doubt we must lay in a great store of it. Well, there is plenty of timber down in the valley, and with ten horses we can bring up a tidy lot every day." ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... not time," said Sue. "And probably there is not so large a pane without going to the city. But we can pick up the pieces and make it look as tidy as possible." ...
— Bobby of Cloverfield Farm • Helen Fuller Orton
... girl, she had no notion that it was quite possible to be too early at the Hall; her only fear was being too late. Then there were all the household cares to see to, and the dear babes to dress, and the place to tidy up, and breakfast to get ready, and, any how, she could not be abroad till half-past eight: so, to her dismay, it must be past nine before ever she can see Sir John. Let us follow her a little: for on this important day we shall have to take the adventures of our labourer's ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... inwardly, but she undressed Robin and put her in bed, laying everything away and making things tidy for the night. ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... am the captain of a tidy little ship, Of a ship that goes a-sailing on the pond; And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about; But when I'm a little older, I shall find the secret out How to send my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... one hundred compactly built houses standing on the western bank of the Detroit river. Beyond it, on both sides for nearly eight miles, stretched the prosperous settlement of French peasants, whose long, narrow farms reached far back from the river, though in every case the tidy white houses and outbuildings stood close ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... made no reply, but as soon as the potatoes were finished set his young friend to clean brass work, and after that to tidy the cabin up and help the cook clean his pots and pans. Meantime the mate went below and overhauled ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... Ma'am wouldn't hurt a hair of her head, for all her bouncings and flinging of pots and kettles when she is in a temper. It is the basement tries her, poor soul. She says she has never been used to it. Her first husband was in the tin trade, and they had a tidy little shop ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... orange groves mentioned in her documents," he said gravely. "How much of it she owns will have to be determined by an attorney. But I guess," he added, looking down at Nan with a kindly smile, "that the property she holds here is worth a tidy sum, several thousand dollars at least. Of course the orange grove itself ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... of you could make friends with that child!" Bardsley exclaimed. "I'd give a tidy lot to know whether Phineas Duge lies there on his bed, or whether his hand is on the telephone half the time. You are sure, Littleson, that ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... say, Margaret was good-tempered, a most remarkable thing in a good cook; and more remarkable still, was tidy in her person, and cleanly ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... hard and continuous; that was attested by all the senses. The very taste of battle was in the air. All was now over; it remained only to succor the wounded and bury the dead—to "tidy up a bit," as the humorist of a burial squad put it. A good deal of "tidying up" was required. As far as one could see through the forests, among the splintered trees, lay wrecks of men and horses. Among them moved the stretcher-bearers, gathering and carrying away the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... the woman who faced him, flushed with gaiety and pleasure, not alone because she was once more with her father, but also because she unexpectedly was looking her best. If she had been well suited in her tidy pongee travelling costume, she found her evening gown no less becoming. It was a black affair, very simple and individual; her shoulders rose from it with intensified purity of tone, like fair white ivory gleaming ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... her thoughts had been changed by her talk with her father, and as she made herself tidy, and went down to dinner, she felt a responsibility on her to act as became the brave daughter of ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... Girl climbed way, way, way up that big tree and looked into the round little room up there. There was no furniture—none at all. Just one bare nursery, in which five babies were staying day and night. Yet it was a tidy room, fresh and sweet enough for anybody to live in; for a crow, young or old, is ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... with them the traveling-cloak. He sat down on the floor, looking at the empty shelves, so beautifully clean and tidy, then burst out sobbing as ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... corner of Cynthia's nursery. And it was not in the best corner either. It was in the corner behind the door, and that was not at all a fashionable neighborhood. Racketty-Packetty House had been pushed there to be out of the way when Tidy Castle was brought in, on Cynthia's birthday. As soon as she saw Tidy Castle Cynthia did not care for Racketty-Packetty House and indeed was quite ashamed of it. She thought the corner behind the door quite good enough for such a shabby old dolls' house, when there was the beautiful big new one ...
— Racketty-Packetty House • Frances H. Burnett
... table for dressings, and some oddments of chairs, including two carved oak dining-room chairs. Round the front steps is a barricade of sandbags against snipers' bullets. The officer's room above the cellars was quite nice and tidy, furnished from the ruined houses, and with a vase of daffodils! He had been told the day before to allow no one up the staircase, because snipers were on the look-out for the top windows, and if it were seen to be used as an observing station it might draw the shells. ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... of the goddess is found hanging upside down. One morning when the head of the family comes out of his bed-room and the youngsters go in to make the room tidy, as they call it, (though they generally make the room more untidy and finally leave it to the servants) they find the famous family picture hanging literally topsyturvy (that is with head downwards) and they at once sound the alarm. Then ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... understood to have an extensive library of an exceedingly miscellaneous character. He has an especial liking for books which bear the traces of former distinguished owners. He himself has pointed out that, 'as a rule, tidy and self-respecting people do not even write their names on their fly-leaves, still less do they scribble marginalia. Collectors love a clean book, but a book scrawled on may have other merits. Thackeray's countless caricatures add a delight to his old school books; the comments of Scott ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... was that man. He had come from another part of the state to take a place in the bank. He lived in the upper story of Boaz Negro's house, the ground floor now doing for Boaz and the meagre remnant of his family. The old woman who came in to tidy up for the cobbler looked ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... to my will, this is. I was goin' to take it to get it altered, for I've not been feelin' very well lately, I've not been feelin' very well. This was made when I thought Mark was a nephew to be proud of—d——n him—and I can tell yer I left him a pretty tidy plum under it. Now see what I do with it. No fire, isn't there? Well, it doesn't make any odds. There ... and there ... and there;' and he tore the papers passionately across and across several times. 'There's an end of your ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... the big bedroom in which the coffined body lay. Dr. Martineau, struck by a sudden memory, glanced nervously at the desk, but someone had made it quite tidy and the portrait of Aliss Grammont had disappeared. Miss Leeds walked straight across to the coffin and stood looking down on the waxen inexpressive dignity of the dead. Sir Richmond's brows and nose had become sharper and more clear-cut than ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... my wife, "that your Bridget is worth teaching. She is honest, well-principled, and tidy. She has good recommendations from excellent families, whose ideas of good bread, it appears, differ from ours; and with a little good-nature, tact, and patience, she ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... ablaze with light, and there were sounds of music and singing as brother and sister, entering the house, wended their way to the oak parlour and warmed their hands at the cheerful blaze. The gas was lit, the curtains drawn, the room tidy and inviting-looking; but no kind motherly face was there to welcome them and ask if the evening had been a pleasant one. At other times Winnie would not, most probably, have felt the blank, having been accustomed to such neglect; but coming straight from Aunt Judith's ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... the Japanese, and make clear to his eyes that I had not returned on account of the plague. Authorities of Japan treat people who are quarantined in a way that removes the stress of disagreeableness. All are taken ashore and to a hospital. There is furnished a robe of the country, clean and tidy in all respects. The common clothing is removed and fumigated. It is necessary for each quarantined person to submit to this and also to a bath, which is a real luxury, and after it comes a cup of tea and a light lunch. There was an actual ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... and get rich, and pay the arrears. But Mrs. Hutch cut me short at the mention of college. She broke out with her old reproaches, and worked herself into a worse fury than I had ever witnessed before. I was all alone in the tempest, and a very old lady was sitting on a sofa, drinking tea; and the tidy on the back of the sofa ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... Bonnet," Miss Clyde said, entering the room followed by Delia with a brass kettle of steaming water, "make yourself tidy quickly. Tea ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... living high on the way. The sheriff had his wife with him, and it dawned on George that Joe Morrill was having an extraordinarily pleasant vacation at the expense of the taxpayers and of George's own reputation, and, in addition, was making a tidy sum of money out of the trip. His transportation, reservations, and allowance per diem were paid, of course, by the county he represented. George, having brought a load of cattle to the stock-yards, had a pass for his return. But that was the sheriff's luck, it appeared, not the county's. Morrill ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... to snatch it from me, exclaimed, 'Let alone, missis—let be—what for you lift wood—you have nigger enough, missis, to do it!' I hereupon had to explain to them my view of the purposes for which hands and arms were appended to our bodies, and forthwith began making Rose tidy up the miserable apartment, removing all the filth and rubbish from the floor that could be removed, folding up in piles the blankets of the patients who were not using them, and placing, in rather more sheltered and comfortable positions, those ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... now at home in the shabby cottage on the outskirts of Colversham where he lived with his mother and four sisters. Poor as the place was it was spotlessly neat and Tim's family were spotlessly tidy too. Mrs. McGrew, who supported her household by doing washing for some of the families in the town, might have had a permanent and much more lucrative position elsewhere had it not been for leaving her five little ones; as it was, she clung to her ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... bad qualities of every common article of food, and the simplest and best modes of their preparation: when you have time, go and help in the cooking of poorer families, and show them how to make as much of everything as possible, and how to make little, nice; coaxing and tempting them into tidy and pretty ways, and pleading for well-folded table- cloths, however coarse, and for a flower or two out of the garden to strew on them. If you manage to get a clean table-cloth, bright plates on it, and a good dish in the middle, of your own cooking, you may ask leave to say a short grace; ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... himself, however, was upon the face of his appearance nothing of the swashbuckler. True, in his close-cut leather trousers, his neat boots, his tidy gloves, his rather jaunty broad black hat of felted beaver, he made a somewhat raffish figure of a man as he rode up, weight on his under thigh, sidewise, and hand on his horse's quarters, carelessly; ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... but that doesn't make him less stand-offish. He may be in the business, but he's not of it. I doubt myself whether even old Cramphorn would venture to invite him to dinner, and if he did, I'd bet a tidy sum that ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... let me take the lead, miss. You hand me things, I'll pile 'em in the barrow and wheel 'em off to the barn; then it will save time, and be finished up tidy." ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... turned back with a little chill, a feeling that he had left the warm, living thing and was too much alone. This time he came through Prairie and Calumet Avenues. Here, on the asphalt pavements, the broughams and hansoms rolled noiselessly to and fro among the opulent houses with tidy front grass plots and shining steps. The avenues were alive with afternoon callers. At several points there were long lines of carriages, attending a reception, or a ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... in a round about way that Clark, or Bennington, to use but two of his names, had forged certain documents in order to make it appear that he was her legal guardian. This gave him control of Carrie, and her money, a tidy sum left by her father. The girl he compelled to accompany him on his vending trips, but when he went into the making of worthless hair restorer and obliged her to pose as having benefited by ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... things had happened. The room was swept and tidy, the flowers were watered, and the piece of work she had left half done was lying finished on the broad window seat. The poor woman looked round her in astonishment. She went downstairs to enquire if any neighbours had prepared this surprise for her, but they only stared at her, and told her ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... hear that, Mrs. Kronborg. I wish we could get the old man off his bottle and keep him tidy. Do you suppose if I gave you an old overcoat you could get him to wear it?" The doctor went to the bedroom door and Mrs. Kronborg ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... standing with their host. When matters had been settled in the office Holt led them to the wash room. Here the young men dusted themselves off, washed, polished their own shoes, donned clean collars and cuffs, and, altogether, speedily made themselves so tidy that they looked quite different from the dusty travelers who had trudged ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... him at all," replied Marjorie. "He's not a poor person's child, and he's not exactly a gentleman's. The carriage was very shabby, with such an old rug; and the girl wasn't tidy enough for a nurse, she looked like a general slavey. Dona, I don't believe ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... that disturbed her was the comfort and arrangement of everything. Certainly the drawing-room had not been very orderly, full of old things badly placed, but this bedroom was clean and tidy, and the supper last night, so neat on its tray with everything that she could want! She could feel the order and discipline of the whole house. And she had never, in all her life, been either orderly or disciplined. She had never been brought up ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... servants' compound plots have been provided for gardening, and provision made for the children's play, and pictures given to parents as prizes for tidy homes. Soap and clothes and medicines are given here also; a special series of lectures on diseases and the evils of drink has been started. A lecture a week is given—cholera, malaria, typhoid fever, dysentery have been touched on—lantern slides and charts and pictures ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... the face was singularly pretty, glanced graciously towards the husband, and said, "I see the likeness!" then to Sophy, "I fear you are tired, my dear: you must not overfatigue yourself; and you must take milk fresh from the cow every morning." And now the bailiff's wife came briskly out, a tidy, fresh-coloured, kind-faced woman, fond of children; the more so because she had none ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which is like a bad child and never behaves when it is expected to. Ben and Percy wash the dishes. Thank heavens for that. I could never make a living as a scullery maid. It's a dog's life. Elinor and Mary make up our cots and keep things tidy. It is really and truly camping now, and such a relief not to have those Lupos. But there is trouble about the laundry. Nobody in these high places will stoop to wash clothes. If you could send us up a strong, fearless girl, it doesn't matter how little she knows, it would be fine. ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... look at the servant who has just finished dressing her; —awe-struck, full of love and wonder, putting her hand softly on the child's head, who has never cried. The nurse, who has just taken her, is—the nurse, and no more: tidy in the extreme, and greatly proud and pleased: but would be as much so with ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... a matter of economy of time and toil as building a road. Almost every cottage has specimens of fine art on the walls in the shape of pictures "done" by Jane or Eliza, or embroidery upon lambrequin, portiere, or tidy. It occurs to Jane and Eliza as seldom as to their fore-mothers, that cooking is an art in itself, that may be "fine" to exquisiteness. In their eyes, it is an ugly necessity, to be got over as expeditiously as "the men-folks" will allow, their coarser natures demanding more ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... me," said Clara. "Now go upstairs, please, and make yourself tidy. Have a dull moment—not more than one, for dinner is nearly ready—and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... towards none of which (the best far transcending the worst Italian Judas) they seem to feel any repugnance. They have also a beastly love of horrors; their decollations and flagellations are quite sickening in detail, as distinguished from the tidy, decorous executions of the early Italians; and one feels that they do enjoy seeing, as in one of their prints, the bowels of St. Erasmus being taken out with a windlass, or Jael, as Altdorfer has shown her in his romantic print, neatly hammering the nail into the head of the ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... litter and disfigure the cliff and caves is to be regarded, the castle is not as well patronized as it should be. This unseemliness is kept under by what appears to be a daily clean up, though the writer has never met the public benefactor who makes all tidy in the early morning hours before the steamers have discharged their crowds. Possibly this is the same individual who keeps the tangle of blackberry and tamarisk pruned down so that while resting with "Sir Walter Scott" or "Shakespeare" ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... the room—the white table, the nice rag-carpet, the bright many-coloured patch-work counterpane on the bed, the brilliant cleanliness of the floor where the small carpet left the boards bare, the tidy look of the two women; and she made up her mind that she could get along with Miss Barbara very well. Barby was rather tall, and in face decidedly a fine-looking woman, though her figure had the usual scantling proportions which nature or ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... her, and stay indoors for keeps, and wrestle with a mortgage for exercise, and give up the road. Prometheus swears. He tries to imagine what our epics would be like if wives wrote them: what heroes they'd sing. Tidy, amiable, hearthstone heroes, who'd always wind up the clock regularly, and never invent dangerous airplanes or seek the North Pole. Ulysses knitting sweaters by the fireside. ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... spinning-wheels had been imported at great expense and endless trouble, as well as blacksmiths' and carpenters' tools of all kinds. A delightfully neat garden with European flowers was indeed a great joy to one's eyes, now unaccustomed to so gay and tidy a sight. What pleased me most of all was to notice how devoted to the Salesians the Indians were, and how happy and well cared for they seemed to be. They had the most ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... was simply furnished, extremely plain and tidy. It was impersonal, neutral, like the room in a hotel. And yet he had spent in it twelve years of his life. Most people collect no end of trifles during such a period; presents, little superfluous nothings, ornaments. Not a single engraving, not a ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... However, with what you and Bob and I are going to earn this summer we should make out very well, even if your Uncle Mark Miller has left us in the lurch and your Uncle Henry King's investments have gone bad on us. I'll be turning a tidy penny with my boarders, thanks to you. And for a lad your age ten dollars a week is not to be sneezed at. Why, we'll have quite a little fortune ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... came along at a tidy pace too,' observed the coachman, looking over his shoulder at Nicholas with no very pleasant ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... at the beef. "I've seen them buryin' a chief up the Aruwimi River, and they ate a hippo that must have weighed as much as a tribe. There are some of them down New Guinea way that eat the late-lamented himself, just by way of a last tidy up. Well, of all the funeral feasts on this earth, I suppose the one we are takin' is ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hill, and had Tish not thoughtfully brought her wire cutters along I do not believe we would have succeeded in reaching headquarters. We got there finally, however, and it was in a cellar and—though I do not care to reflect on our gallant army—not as tidy as it should have been. Mr. Burton having remained behind temporarily the three of us made our way to the entrance, and Tish was almost bayoneted by a sentry there, who was nervous because of a number of shells ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... looked down on his own, light and threadbare, here and there almost burst into holes by the stout muscles of the big growing boy—looked rather disconsolately. "I'm afraid SHE would be sorry—that's all! She always kept me so tidy." ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... always asserted that the room was tidy enough, and that he hated to live in a prim apartment. He said that he could lay his hand on anything he wanted, and that the seeming confusion was perfect order to him. Lucy gave up arguing on these ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... fer ya, strangers," he said, his voice sounding tired and discouraged. "If it's a woman ye have with ye, ye better ride on to the next ranch. My woman is sick. Very sick. There's nobody here with her but me, and I have all I can tend to. The house ain't kept very tidy. It's six weeks since she took ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill |
