"Broom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... our street and the breeze is a dirty little broom that sweeps dust into our room and bits of paper out of the alley. You are not let to play with the children in the alley But you must be very polite— so you pass them and say good day and when they fling banana skins you fling ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... to explain that the broken lamp was really Moses Mouse's fault. But Mrs. Green wouldn't listen. She ran out of the room and came back at once with a broom in her hand. Then, opening the front door, she drove ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... inside, there was so much to be done that I did not know what I should turn to first. I bought a one-and-ninepenny broom and set to work. You notice that I am precise about small sums, because just there lies the whole key of the situation. In the yard I found a zinc pail with a hole in it, which was most useful, for by its aid I managed to ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... has a volume and a broom, supposing it has, supposing there is catarrh, supposing coughing is peculiar, supposing it is not, if it is not why should hushing be synonymous with a mixed up engagement, why should it ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... had made me wise. I did not feel discouraged by the humbleness of my employment, and I fulfilled my duties with exactitude, handling the duster and broom to the ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... swabbing the forward deck with their pendulum-like brooms, and working their way aft in a regular, serried rank. The phalanx moved with an even stroke, and each bare foot advanced just so many inches at every third sweep of the broom, while the yellow-haired Norse 'prentice played the hose in front of them. Mr. Barker perceived that they would overtake him before long, and he determined on flight, not forward or aft, but aloft; and he leisurely lifted himself ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... bottle? Did ye iver have to lay on ye'er stummick with ye'er nose burrid in th' Lord knows what while things was whistlin' over ye that, if they iver stopped whistlin', 'd make ye'er backbone look like a broom? Did ye iver see a man that ye'd slept with th' night before cough, an' go out with his hands ahead iv his face? Did ye iver have to wipe ye'er most intimate frinds off ye'er clothes, whin ye wint home at night? Where was he durin' th' war?' he says. ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... top bed in a bare-walled, bare-floored room with two other boys, as green and countrified as was he, and he took turns with them making up those beds, carrying water for the one tin basin, and sweeping up the floor with the broom that stood in the corner behind it. But even then the stark simplicity of his life was a luxury. His meals cost him three dollars a week, and that most serious item began to worry him, but not for long. Within two weeks he was meeting a part of that outlay by delivering the morning ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... have heard the following is effective: Take a quart of lye prepared from the ashes of vine twigs, briony, celandine roots, and tumeric, of each half an ounce; saffron and lily roots, of each two drams; flowers of mullein, yellow stechas, broom, and St. John's wort, of each a dram. Boil these together and strain off the liquor clear. Frequently wash the hair with the fluid, and it will change it, we are told, in a short time to a beautiful ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... save your life,' said Bensiabel, 'for I love you better than myself. Take this flagon of oil, this loaf of bread, this piece of rope, and this broom. When you reach the witch's house, oil the hinges of the door with the contents of the flagon, and throw the loaf of bread to the great fierce mastiff, who will come to meet you. When you have passed the dog, you will see in ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... had incantations, which they have used to make a broom-stick into a horse, to kill or to sicken animals and persons, etc. Most of these are sufficiently stupid, and not half so wonderful as one I know, which may be found in a certain mysterious volume called "The Girl's Own Book," and which, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... his promise! It belonged to the large family of promises that Nick had been making for many months. It was as easily broken as a broom straw. Aunt Ella and her husband, who was president of a great Western college, were not long in seeing the worst side of little Nick. He repeatedly did the very things his mama had urged him not to do, and was ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... and was so high that nearly always it was free of snow, which the strong winds coming down from the mountains swept as clear as if a gigantic broom ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... followed Marie, who was swimming a considerable distance ahead. Among the peculiarities of Neusiedl Lake are its numerous islets, the shores of which are thickly grown with rushes, and covered with broom and tall trees. Such an island lay not far from the shore in front of the Nameless Castle; it had ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... know what the comet meant That rode, blood-red and dire, Across the midnight firmament This year on a broom of fire. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... grow, how nice it would be! On the open grassy downs about here the blossoms are lovely—beautiful lilies in scarlet and white clusters, several sorts of periwinkles, heaths, cinnerarias, both purple and white, and golden bushes of citisus or Cape broom, load the air with fragrance. By the side of every "spruit" or brook one sees clumps of tall arum lilies filling every little water-washed hollow in the brook, and the ferns which make each ditch and water-course green and plumy have a separate shady beauty of their own. This is all in Nature's own ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... early in the morning, and I expected to have the hall to myself when I came into it out of the corridor wherein was my sleeping chamber; but I met Annie at once, who let fall her broom and gave me a kiss, quite meaningless I fear, except as betokening friendship, though she reddened as she did it, not from shyness, but from friendly pleasure, and then stood and picked up her broom again, and went on with her sweeping, nodding to me as if to bid me stand out of the way and look ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... I am so sorry that I upset you, dear, but I had to catch at the chair to save myself from falling over the broom! What made you leave it lying on the floor?" asked Mrs. Burton, who had been the ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... They demand the facts in the case; fresh manna to satisfy their heart hunger; the solid realities of personal experience. No. It is too late to-day for the churchmen to play the part of Mrs. Partington, and sweep back the Atlantic tide of modern thought with their little ecclesiastical broom. The old ramparts are broken through and we must give the flood its course. The only spirit to meet it in is that of frankness and friendliness. Let us not foster in these questioning minds the suspicion that there is any part of religion that we are ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... then P. Napolini di Vendetta Pasquarelle Sought out a city thoroughfare, the swellest of the swell. He stole a shovel, and he found a broom he thought would do, Then rang the massive front-door bell of Stuyvesant Depew. "I wanta shov' da snow," he said, when there at last appeared Fitzjohn Augustus Higgins, who in Birmingham was reared, A man by all in low estate much hated and ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... younger Ralestones as they came through from the kitchen. They had both changed into their oldest and least respectable clothes. Ricky, in fact, was wearing a pair of Val's slacks and one of Rupert's shirts, and they were burdened with a broom which was long past its youth, several smaller brushes, and a great ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... over dry ground? Why did she go only through the water? The horseman meanwhile squatted down among the broom, rested his gun upon his knee, made sure that it was cocked and that the powder had not fallen from the pan, and noiselessly crouched down, gazing after the retreating steed, as she reached the opposite bank. Suddenly she drew in her tail, bristled her mane, pricked up her ears. Her ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Martin's, I suppose," said Clemantiny, grasping a broom handle with a grimness that boded ill for the dog. "Mussing up my clean doorstep with his dirty paws again. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know not; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a pig to run at large. Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece of household work which in ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... woman on the first, who sat on the front steps in her soiled breakfast cap and bungalow apron. She hated the nervous tenant who occupied the apartment just over her mother's three-room-and-bath, and pounded with a broom handle on the floor when Lorraine practised overtime on ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... that is worth doing is worth doing well. (To Rock.) Look now at the marks of your boots upon the ground. Get up out of that till I'll bustle it with the broom! ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... been done so suddenly and with so little noise, that the passengers and owners of the shops were not aware of what had occurred until they beheld the twelve captives rush past them like a torrent—each seizing, as he passed, a broom-handle, or any piece of timber that ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... and broom of twigs was sweeping up the market litter in the square. Nick wondered if his own mother's back would be so bent ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... misty moorlands Voice of the glens and hills; The droning of the torrents, The treble of the rills! Not the braes of broom and heather, Nor the mountains dark with rain, Nor maiden bower, nor border tower, Have heard your ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... the bear; "knock some of the snow off my coat." So they brought the broom and brushed the bear's ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... not observed it, nor did he seem to see the red-headed canvasman striding his way. Mr. Kennedy, the keeper, was at the far end of the line sweeping off the baby elephant with a broom, while Phil and Teddy were sitting on a pile of straw back of Emperor discussing their experience the ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... felt the impress of his hot lips on her cheek, not once, but a dozen times. Then of a sudden he released her with a bitter oath, as the shrieking voice of Mrs. Ransford sounded close by, and the thwack of a heavy broom fell upon ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... "But if it's old Adam Broom comes ye'll hae to be runnin' faster than the charge o' shot he'll be peppering your troosers ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... an old violin, and herself sitting practising, over and over, that part of Paderewski's Minuet where, as every one knows, the fingering is rather difficult, and outside the open window, leaning on his broom, worthless Johnny Fraser, staring in with friendly eyes and an extremely dirty face. To Twenty-two's unbounded amazement she flung down the cushion and made for the little ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... learn the art." Abe Shiro[u]goro[u] snickered—"Kage Dono is too precise. Would he learn the art of converse over his master's wine?"—"Not unwillingly," replied the nag. "But in any case he would have Isuke and this lazy groom make better and more frequent use of broom and bucket. The good offices of Abe Dono are requested." By this retort courteous the two noblemen were silenced and amused. Uncertain as to the course of further converse with the beast Okumura made salutation, mounted and departed homewards. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... her head than the yellow of the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the sprays of the meadow fountain. The eye of the trained hawk, the glance of the three-mewed falcon was not brighter ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... afraid she never found that best of bake-shops. I was going quietly along, when the sound of another horse coming made me look round; and there I saw a dreadful sight,—a wild horse, tearing over the ground, with fiery eyes and streaming tail. On his back sat a crazy man, beating him with a broom; a crazy woman was behind him, with her bonnet on wrong side before, holding one crazy child in her lap, while another stood on the horse; a third was hanging on by one foot, and all were howling at the top of their voices as they rushed ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... I come for? You ask why? What is your faith?" shouted Father Ferapont crazily. "I've come here to drive out your visitors, the unclean devils. I've come to see how many have gathered here while I have been away. I want to sweep them out with a birch broom." ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the girl, who, as she moved clumsily to and fro, uttered no sound save now and then a characteristic grunt. Instinct told the squatter that she would choke the sensitive throat of the student if she raised the dust by sweeping and she refrained from using a broom, but Frederick wished vaguely that she would gather up the fish bones and crumbs of bread from her path that they might not crunch so audibly under her heavy boots. An open Bible placed on Daddy Skinner's stool attracted his attention in his survey of the room. Through ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... principles properly interpreted and applied would spiritualize a broom and duster and all the utensils of a home or the ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... hedge; so it drives stray human creatures to the door. A third came—an old gipsy woman—still stout and hearty, with green fresh brooms to sell. We bought some brooms—one of them was left on the kitchen floor, and the tame rabbit nibbled it; it proved to be heather. The true broom is as green and succulent in appearance in January as June. She would see the 'missis.' 'Bless you, my good lady, it be weather, bean't it? I hopes you'll never know what it be to want, my good lady. Ah, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... preacher of the gospel. My great-grandfather, finding him as weak in intellect as he was strong in conceit, advised him to continue in his present vocation. The young man said, "But I wish to preach and glorify God." "My young friend, a man may glorify God making broom besoms; stick to your trade, and glorify God by ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... department. He looked more than ever studious and ascetic, having exchanged his soft felt hat for a velvet skull-cup, and his frock coat for a thin alpaca. He was attended by a charwoman with scrubbing brush and pail, a boy with ladder and broom, and a carpenter with foot-rule, note-book and pencil. He moved among them with his most solemn, most visionary air, the air, not so much of a Wesleyan minister, as of a priest engaged in some high service ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... of heather, Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom: We two among them wading together, Shaking out ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... strangeness in the room, And Something white and wavy Was standing near me in the gloom - I took it for the carpet-broom Left by ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... labor. He was a splendid peasant, and, except for his affliction, any girl would have been glad to marry him. . . But now they had taken Gerasim to Moscow, bought him boots, had him made a full-skirted coat for summer, a sheepskin for winter, put into his hand a broom and a spade, and appointed ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... pinching economies, the dying paper managed to drag along. It was the fire that furnished Sam Clemens with his Jim Wolfe sketch. In it he stated that Jim in his excitement had carried the office broom half a mile and had then come ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... in wait, if I must, in the alley, with my broom and my old darling, and they sha'n't leave here till you have spoken ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... tiny vessels in which sand and stones and seeds provide the equivalent of mud pies in repasts of imaginary rice and curry. Household duties begin also. Meenachi at the age of six grasps her small bundle of broom-grass and sweeps each morning her allotted section of verandah. Soon she is helping to polish the brass cooking pots and to follow her mother and older sisters, earthen waterpot on hip, on their morning and ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... woman tossed up in a blanket, Seventeen times as high as the moon; Where she was going I could not but ask it, For in her hand she carried a broom. "Old woman, old woman, old woman," quoth I; "O whither, O whither, O whither so high?" "To sweep the cobwebs from the sky, And I'll be ...
— The Baby's Bouquet - A Fresh Bunch of Rhymes and Tunes • Walter Crane
... of special ideals, but as schoolmasters deciding what all must think,—and what more grotesque topic could a satirist wish for on which to exercise his pen? The fabled attempt of Mrs. Partington to arrest the rising tide of the North Atlantic with her broom was a reasonable spectacle compared with their effort to substitute the content of their clean-shaven systems for that exuberant mass of goods with which all human nature is in travail, and groaning to bring to the light of day. Think, furthermore, ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... of this charming retreat, and owner of the ragged head before mentioned—for he wore an old tie-wig as bare and frowzy as a stunted hearth-broom—had by this time joined them; and stood a little apart, rubbing his hands, wagging his hoary bristled chin, and smiling in silence. His eyes were closed; but had they been wide open, it would have been easy to tell, from the attentive expression of the face he ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... was supplied with bath-rooms, and the entire work of the various departments was performed by the appointed corps of inmates; the Sisters of the wash tub, and of the broom brigade, being selected for the work best adapted to their physical ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... swam to a bush of golden broom, and pulled himself out of the water; and while the friar was scrambling out, Robin fitted an arrow to his bow and let fly at him. But the friar quickly held up his shield, and ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... parrot had learned to sing "Buy a Broom" just like a child. If she made a mistake, she would cry out, "O la!" burst out laughing, and ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... odorous place were sawing wood in an unsynchronous chorus. No one seemed to be about, so he seized a pail half filled with sujee, a block of holystone, and a stiff broom. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... are held in very little estimation by our colonists; but that is not the case with the acid berry, which is about the size of a currant, and grows on a tree, the leaves of which resemble the broom: the acid of this fruit, even when ripe, is very strong, and is, perhaps, the purest in the world: it is pleasant to the taste, and Governor Phillip found it particularly so when on a journey in hot weather: the surgeon held it in great estimation as ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... Jameson—" the Speaker stopped abruptly. The legislators in the front seats swung around, and people in the gallery craned forward to see a member standing at his seat in the extreme rear of the hall. He was a little man in an ill-fitting coat, his wizened face clean-shaven save for the broom-shaped beard under his chin, which he now held in his hand. His thin, nasal voice was somehow absurdly penetrating as he addressed the chair. Mr. Sutton was apparently, for once, taken by surprise, and stared a moment, as though racking his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... thinking? and what was all that talk about a mysterious visitor? She would have to question Ada—diplomatically. She returned to her room and sat down in an arm-chair, and waited. In sheer weariness she fell into a doze, and woke at the sound of dustpan and broom. She rang the bell, and asked for hot water, tea, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... sinner both patronized this store. The Reverend Ezekiel Gear, who was the chaplain at the fort, evidently believed that cleanliness was next to godliness, for on July 31, 1855, he paid thirty cents for a scrub brush; on August 4th, he bought a broom for fifty cents; on August 30th, he purchased twenty-five cents worth of starch, and on October 19th, a large broom. Indulging in some luxuries, on August 2nd, 1855, he bought five cents worth of candy. Probably this was a treat ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... passed, the head teacher said to me, "The adjoining recitation room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it." ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... returned through Matilda, daughter of Henry I and the Saxon princess. She married Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. This Geoffrey, called "the handsome," always wore in his helmet a sprig of the broom-plant of Anjou (Planta genista), hence their son, Henry II. of England, ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... simple," drawled Roberta indifferently. "The head is my black silk petticoat. I painted on the features, because the children like to have me do it at home, and it's convenient to be ready. The arms are a broom-handle, stuck through the sleeves of this old coat, which ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... here scattered about in the most agreeable way, such as is only practicable in a country in a state of considerable security. Some of them were surrounded by a bush like the broom, growing to a height of ten or twelve feet. The doctor and his native companions passed through a village in which was a large market-place consisting of several rows of well-built sheds. The market women who attached themselves to their cavalcade ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... and the old man resumed his sweeping, muttering crossly into his long, white beard. As she came down the other side of the street half an hour later, she was watching Schulte from the corner of her eye. He was leaning on his broom, watching her. Seeing that she was going to pass without stopping he called to her and went slowly across the street. "You would make good tenants," he said. "I had to sue Bischoff. You can have it for forty—if you'll pay for the changes you ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... shrubs (as you might call them), and we know tomillares, or undergrowth; but in Corsica nature heaps these together with both hands, and the Corsican, in despair of separating them, calls them all macchia. Cistus, myrtle and cactus; cytisus, lentisk, arbutus; daphne, heath, broom, juniper and ilex—these few I recognised, but there was no end to their varieties and none to their tangle of colours. The slopes flamed with heather bells red as blood, or were snowed white with ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wild-eyed and tearful, a thought made its way through the kinky hair into her bewildered brain. She darted back into the house, and reappeared with a broom. ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... London. Merlin was a god of knowledge; he could foretell events. Ceridwen was the goddess of wisdom; she distilled wisdom-giving drops in a cauldron. Gwydion created a beautiful girl from flowers, "from red rose, and yellow broom, and white anemony." I am not quite sure what Coil did, but I have heard children singing the history of "old King Cole." Olwen also walked through Wales in heathen times, and it is said that three white flowers rose behind her wherever ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... pooty as paint, and with cheeks like a blush—rose in bloom, 'As 'er lamps all a-larf on yer face, and a giggle goes round the whole room, 'Tisn't nice to sit square on a chair, with a feller a-sharpening 'is wit On your nob, and a rumpling your 'air till it's like a birch-broom ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... to toll neighbor Gordon's rye," he said, as he gave a final rub on the broom Dorothy handed out to him. "It's wonderful how careless ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... from east to west? How much more natural that our understanding may by the volubility of our loose-capring mind be transported from his place, than that one of us should by a strange spirit in flesh and bone be carried upon a broom through the tunnel of a chimney? . . . I deem it a matter pardonable not to believe a wonder, at least so far forth as one may explain away or break down the truth of the report in some way not miraculous. . . . ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... a monk are his clothes (or, better, none), his alms-bowl, broom, and veil. He is 'unfettered,' in being without desires and without injury to others. 'Some say that all sorts of living beings may be slain, or abused, or tormented, or driven away—the doctrine of the unworthy. The righteous man does not kill nor cause others to kill. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... in memory of the crucifixion and resurrection and ascension of their Master by the peasants, and looked down over the earth, bright with crimson poppies everywhere in field and hill, brilliant with the old-gold blossom of the broom flower, as we stood there, our hearts subdued to awe and wonder, looking down, suddenly the rain ceased and the sun shone in its full glory and lighted anew the white marble of the figures of the ascension far below us in ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... splendor of a summer evening. Above the mound on which it stood, rose two steep hills, overgrown with furze and fern, except on their tops, which were clothed with purple heath; they were also covered with patches of broom, and studded with gray rocks, which sometimes rose singly or in larger masses, pointed or rounded into curious and fantastic shapes. Exactly between these hills the sun went down during the month of June, and nothing could be in finer relief than the rocky and picturesque ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... another one of dem thought comin. Yes, my Lord, I hear talk dat if you get de broom en sweep your house out fore sunrise, you would sweep your friends out right wid de trash. Dat used to be a big sign wid de people, too. En it bad luck to take up ashes after de sun go down, dey say. Yes, I know bout plenty people won' ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... & men too, foller and flatter me! If I go into Lady Binsis hopra box, she makes room for me, who ever is there, and cries out, 'O do make room for that dear creature!' And she complyments me on my taste in musick, or my new Broom-oss, or the phansy of my weskit, and always ends by asking me for some shares. Old Lord Bareacres, as stiff as a poaker, as prowd as loosyfer, as poor as Joab—even he condysends to be sivvle to the great De la Pluche, and begged me at Harthur's, lately, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... businesses, 26 days. This island is thoroughly grown with wood of a large and high growth, very straight, and without boughs, save only in the head or top, whose leaves are not much differing from our broom in England. Amongst these trees night by night, through the whole land, did shew themselves an infinite swarm of fiery worms flying in the air, whose bodies being no bigger than our common English flies, make such a show and light as if every twig ...
— Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World • Francis Pretty
... kangaroo. The country seemed to improve as we advanced, and at the ninth mile, as we had been gradually ascending, we were gratified by an open prospect to the eastward, which showed low gentle hills and valleys thinly studded with trees. The broom-grass, now dead, gave them a white appearance, and, contrasted with the acacia in full flower, and the darker foliage of the trees, gave the whole the most pleasing and varied aspect. To the north-west round to ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... lived all alone Where cats had been so long unknown; They ate and slept without a fear That any danger could be near. One sunny day with brush and broom They cleaned their pantry, swept their room, Then made themselves as neat and fine As if invited out to dine. And then not knowing what to do, They looked their cedar closet through And found their gray coats growing thin: So sat them down some yarn to ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... the only European type of the large Cape varieties, in all of which, judging from such plates as have been accessible to me, the crests or fringes of the lower petal are less conspicuous than in the smaller species; and the flower almost takes the aspect of a broom-blossom or pease-blossom. In the smaller European varieties, the white fringes of the lower petal are the most important and characteristic part of the flower, and they are, among European wild flowers, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... Bargain: Besides, if he had not had a Mind to cheat or baffle the poor Man, what need he have taken a Cow so near home? if he had such and such Powers as we talk of, and as Fancy and Fable furnish for him, could not he have carried a Cow in the Air upon a Broom-stick, as well as an old Woman? Could he not have stole a Cow for him in Lincolnshire, and set it down in Herefordshire, and so have performed his Bargain, saved his Credit, and kept the poor Man out of Trouble? so that if the Story is True, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... resemblance to features here. The thin grasses, more or less coating the hill, were touched by the wind in breezes of differing powers, and almost of differing natures—one rubbing the blades heavily, another raking them piercingly, another brushing them like a soft broom. The instinctive act of humankind was to stand and listen, and learn how the trees on the right and the trees on the left wailed or chaunted to each other in the regular antiphonies of a cathedral choir; ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... boxes to wash away the dirt and gravel, leaving the heavier gold in the bottom. Either Mr. A. or his brother, with the foreman, attended to cleaning up the gold. When all the dirt and gravel, or rock, had been washed out of the sluices, a whisk broom was used to brush the gold into a corner of the box, a dustpan conveyed it to broad-mouthed gold pans close at hand, and these were carried into ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... danger of mutual broken limbs, and a table that, like many another frail beauty, might enjoy being supported but could never bear any heavier burden than a card-basket, and was liable to be upset by the vigorous use of dust-brush or broom. "They will help to furnish your rooms," said the generous aunt, "and will give a certain style that cannot be attained with ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... minute. "Give me your broom," said he, and taking it through the partly opened door he carefully turned the knob behind him, swept away the traces leading to the rear window, swept and obliterated those at the back and side, as far as and including those under the east window, then, tossing the broom to the door, strode ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... out, if you like, Ham. I don't bear any ill will towards you, and just as lief do you a good turn as not," I added, taking from the box of the wagon-seat a small hand broom, which I kept there to dust off the cushion, and brush down the mail-bag ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... face, and Carlyle had addressed her as "woman," and had insisted on knowing what she was doing there. And after that she had lost all terror of him. And he had even allowed her with a grim smile to enter occasionally the sacred study with her broom and pan. It had evidently made a lasting impression upon ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... wild week. The storm wind swept with its broom of rain; it lashed us and splashed us, thrashed noses and ears, whistled through our clothing, penetrated the pores of our skin. And in the deluge—sights that made us shudder—gaunt skeleton churches, ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... was stronger than my fear, for I could not remain where I was, but crept back to the bank again, whence, sheltering my head behind a bush of broom, I might command the road before our door. I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began to arrive, seven or eight of them, running hard, their feet beating out of time along the road and the man with the lantern some paces in front. Three men ran together, hand in hand; and I made out, even ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Captain Sol, "you'd better get busy with the broom, hadn't you. It's standin' over in that corner and I wouldn't wonder if it needed exercise. Sim, the train ain't due for twenty minutes yet. That gives us at least three quarters of an hour afore it gets here. Come outside a spell. I ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... first so it will split straight, then raise the handle of the knife and drive the blade into the wood, splitting it as deep as needed, depending on the size of the scion and insert a wooden wedge made from some hard wood. An old broom or hoe handle is good, tapering the wedge from both sides, leaving it thick in the center so it will come out easily after the graft is set by simply tapping lightly from first one side and then the other. In cutting ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various
... Hanna, then a member of the Steering Committee, attempted to steady all Republicans who seemed likely to be seduced by Roosevelt's subversive novelties by telling them to "stand pat," and, as we look back now, the Senator from Ohio with his stand-pattism broom reminds us of the portly Mrs. Partington trying to sweep back the inflowing Atlantic Ocean. During the second Administration, however, no one could plead ignorance or surprise when Roosevelt urged on ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... to our office, and there sat till it was late; and so home and to bed by day-light. This day was kept a holy-day through the towne; and it pleased me to see the little boys walk up and down in procession with their broom- staffs in their hands, as I ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... the trap on it to hold for a few minutes, the old man quickly moved back to a spot where some tall, slender live balsams were growing. Cutting one down, he trimmed off all the branches except a mere broom-like tuft at the top, taking care all the time not to touch any of those remaining with his hands. Returning with this long, broom-like affair, he vigorously used it on a spot some yards away. Then he took the long pole from the hands of Frank, and there in that ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... charwoman and a housekeeper. I was not yet eighteen when I first went to Paris, to study under my cousin, the eminent painter, Henri Lehmann. At his studio I found Virginie installed as the presiding genius of the establishment, using in turn broom or tub, needle, grill or frying-pan as the occasion might require; the wide range of her powers I further extended by making a truly remarkable mesmeric subject of her. My debut in Paris was that of the somewhat bewildered foreigner, speaking but very indifferent French, ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... was a great [snow] storm. The drifts were higher than the [fence]. When it cleared off, [Jack] put on [his cap] and reefer, [mittens] and rubber boots, and went out. [Jimmy Crow] went with him. First, Jack took [shovel] and [broom] and made a wide clean path to the [gate]. This was "working for Mama." Jack likes to work for Papa and Mama. Then [friends] came to play with him, and they had a fine frolic. They rolled big [snowballs], and built a [snowman]. They ...
— Jimmy Crow • Edith Francis Foster
... think we two are sufficient? Had we not better get more help? There is Broom, and Black, the gipsy, at the rendezvous. I can go for them, and be back in time: they ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... tree spontaneously lifts itself into the upper air. Growing nowhere else, and unknown in earlier centuries, By no means great in size, it stretches not far its Spreading branches, nor lifts a lofty top to heaven; But lowly, after the manner of myrtle or pliant broom, It rises from the ground. Many a nut bends its rich branches. Small, like a bean, dark and dull in color, Marked by a slight groove in the centre ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... child is born on the day before the new moon the following ceremony is observed. After bathing the child they place an old broom in the mother's arms instead of the child; then the mother takes the child and throws it out on the dung heap behind the house. The midwife then takes an old broom and an old winnowing fan and sweeps up a little rubbish on ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... "Dead Sea apple" (Solanum Sodomceum), the yellow-flowered acacia, and the liquorice plant. Among the forms due to high elevation are the famous Lebanon cedar, several oaks and juniper, the maple, berberry, jessamine, ivy, butcher's broom, a rhododendron, and the gum-tragacanth plant. The fruits additional to those of the north are dates, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... &c. v.; drainage, sewerage. lavatory, laundry, washhouse[obs3]; washerwoman, laundress, dhobi[obs3], laundryman, washerman[obs3]; scavenger, dustman[obs3], sweep; white wings brush[Local U. S.]; broom, besom[obs3], mop, rake, shovel, sieve, riddle, screen, filter; blotter. napkin, cloth, maukin|, malkin|, handkerchief, towel, sudary[obs3]; doyley[obs3], doily, duster, sponge, mop, swab. cover, drugget[obs3]. wash, lotion, detergent, cathartic, purgative; purifier &c. v.; disinfectant; aperient[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... be needin' a portable bath-tub something desperate. I wisht I had one. The last good wash I took was in Crystal Lake the other side of the Bear-tooth Mountain. When I was done I stood out till the sun dried me, then brushed the mud off with a whisk-broom." ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... A legal broom 's a moral chimney-sweeper, And that 's the reason he himself 's so dirty; The endless soot bestows a tint far deeper Than can be hid by altering his shirt; he Retains the sable stains of the dark creeper, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... all killed, or about to be killed!" he said. "An' there won't be one Texan in arms a month from now! I'm willin' to give my word that here are six of us who will be in arms then, roarin' an' rippin' an' t'arin'! They'll sweep the country clean, will they? They'll need a bigger broom for that job than any that was ever made ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... are worth." For, said Paddy Flynn, who told me the tale, "the left arm is good for nothing. I might go on making the sign of the cross with it, and all that, come Christmas, and a Banshee, or such like, would no more mind than if it was that broom." Well, the slip of a boy struck the horse with his right hand, and John Kirwan cleared the field out. When the race was over, "What can I do for you now?" said he. "Nothing but this," said the boy: "my mother has a cottage on your land-they stole me from the cradle. Be good to her, John ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... at home." And, as Therese remained silent, immovable, Fusellier came near her with his broom, hiding with his left hand his pipe behind ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... woman tossed in a basket, Seventeen times as high as the moon; But where she was going no mortal could tell, For under her arm she carried a broom. ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... wear to go to court in. My sister said I could not take my brother's suit. He told me to take it and bring it home in good condition at night. My sister is supposed to be the plaintiff, but she did not make the complaint. The landlady came in and hit me three times in the head with a broom. My sister called her in and then she threw a piece of wood after me. Sister started crying, but she did not get hit. The landlady got hit. When I fell down I striked her with my head and hurt my head bad. I think I hit her with the left ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... very few. But he could not know this, and so he plunged into the dark hall- way and sprang up the first four flights of stairs, three steps at a jump, with one arm stretched out in front of him, for it was very dark and the turns were short. On the fourth floor he fell headlong over a bucket with a broom sticking in it, and cursed whoever left it there. There was a ladder leading from the sixth floor to the roof, and he ran up this and drew it after him as he fell forward out of the wooden trap that opened on the ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... afraid of a policeman, afraid of physical violence, and lived in constant dread of burglars. But the one thing he was not afraid of was wild animals of the most ferocious sorts, such as lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars. He knew the game, and could conquer the most refractory lion with a broom-handle—not outside the cage, ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... it was, Mrs. Sykes was busy washing the veranda. This was a ritual, rigorously observed twice every day; in the morning with a pail and broom, in the evening with the hose. Par be it from us to malign the excellent Mrs. Sykes or to suggest that her opportune presence on the front steps was due to anything save the virtue of cleanliness. Mrs. Sykes, as she often said, ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... Madras was over. He wore his new red slippers, a wonderful turban and an ecstatic smile. Lucia and Daisy met him with cries of joy, and the remaining guests, those drifting autumn leaves, were swept up, as it were, by some compelling broom and clustered in a heap in front of him. There had been a Great Message, a Word of Might, full of Love and Peace. Never had there ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... prospect every hour. Housework was a pleasant pastime. When my floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my furniture out of doors on the grass, bed and bedstead making but one budget, dashed water on the floor, and sprinkled white sand from the pond on it, and then with a broom scrubbed it clean and white; and by the time the villagers had broken their fast the morning sun had dried my house sufficiently to allow me to move in again, and my meditations were almost uninterupted. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... not asked him, Mary. But I can tell you if you care to know. He will take it with perfect composure. He has about as much capacity for foolish affection as your hearth-broom there." ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... Hope it won't be too much changed, that's all! A new teacher, hot from a High School, means a new broom that will sweep very clean. It strikes me those nice do-as-you-please lessons with Miss Fanny will be dreams of the past, and we shall have to set our brains to work and swat! Ugh! It's not ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... one end, 12 inches wide and 18 inches high, which is fastened by means of an iron bolt and screw, and a strong bar of wood. This is to facilitate cleaning; when a cask is empty, the door is taken out, and a man slips into the cask with a broom and brush, and carefully washes off all remnants of lees, etc., which, as the lees of the wine are very slimy and tenacious, cannot be removed by merely pouring in water and shaking it about. It is also much more convenient to let ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... does not follow that the retail sale of wine was exclusively carried on by special tradesmen. On the contrary, for a long time the owner of the vineyard retailed the wine which he had not been able to sell in the cask. A broom, a laurel-wreath, or some other sign of the sort hung over a door, denoted that any one passing could purchase or drink wine within. When the wine-growers did not have the quality and price of their wine announced in ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... then for the first time it dawned upon him that there were novel disproportions in the world. "Lord sakes," he cried, sitting up and looking animated for the first time, "but them's mortal great thissels growing out there on the bank by that broom. If so be they be thissels? Or 'ave I been forgetting?" But they were thistles, and what he took for tall bushes of broom was the new grass, and amidst these things a company of British soldiers—red-coated as ever—was skirmishing in accordance ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... knows how to handle a broom and he has made a very clean sweep," and he pointed complacently to the heaped-up ruins of the Temple before them. "But how much for the whole ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... palm-tree waveth high, And fair the myrtle springs; And, to the Indian maid, The bulbul sweetly sings. But I dinna see the broom Wi' its tassels on the lee, Nor hear the lintie's sang O' my ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... my great crimes. You know I have deprived the court of the privilege of living in the palace, and I have given them wherewith to find lodgings in the city. Here go the ladies with their bundles under their arms, and the lord high-steward has a broom sweeping after them as they go. This charming individual in the corner with a hunting-whip, is myself. And here is the pith of the joke. 'Rooms to let here. Inquire of the proprietor on the first floor.' [Footnote: Hubner, i., p. 190.] What do ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... narrator is capable of what Blake was to call "mental flight," and there is a particularly vivid passage in which the stars are seen as throwing down "freezing Daggers" at the poor starving children in the streets and another in which we encounter an aged woman who wields a broom against spiders and against all the young women who threaten to come near the narrator (26).[10] The mystic temperament is often capable of making connections between the spiritual and the excremental,[11] between ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... porch sufficed for the family's ablutions. For two mornings the "hired man" of the household watched in silence the visitor's efforts at making a toilette under the unfavorable auspices, but when on the third day the tooth-brush, nail-file, whisk-broom, etc., had been duly used and returned to their places in the traveler's grip, he could suppress his curiosity no longer, so boldly put the question: "Say, Mister, air you always that ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... nothing for a time but fans and feathers of browning fern, dark shags of ling, and podded spurs of broom and furze, and wisps of grass. With great relief (of which I felt ashamed while even breathing it), I thought that the man was afraid to tell the rest of his story, and had fled; but ere my cowardice had much time ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... not permitted to lodge inside. In front of some houses I remarked either a grass plot or an arrangement of colored sand and shells, sometimes little painted wooden statues, sometimes hedges oddly cut. Even the vessels and broom-handles were painted various colors, and cared for like the remainder of the establishment; the inhabitants carrying their love of cleanliness so far as to compel those who entered to take off their shoes, and replace them with slippers, which stood at the door ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... 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 ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... "Minnesota apples" when we took them out to eat. It did seem so good to have real brooms to use. In Maine, we had always made our brooms of cedar boughs securely tied to a short pole. They were good and answered the purpose but a new fangled broom made of broom straw seemed so dressy. I can well remember the first one of this kind I ever had. It was only used on great occasions. Usually we used a splint broom which we ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... phrase be more polite, a detergent—rather than a constructive force. It is not the less worthy of consideration, perhaps, on this account. But on this account it appears to me more likely to play a subordinate than a leading part in the political movement of these times. It is rather a broom, if I may so speak, than a sceptre which the 'brav' general' is expected to wield. In conversation with M. Fleury, another of General Boulanger's intimate and confidential lieutenants, M. Turquet, formerly an Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Fine Arts, who ran ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... fixed she 's to leave London, Mr. Woodseer. I've seen Kit Ines. And she 's to have one of the big houses to her use. I guessed Kit Ines was his broom. He defends it because he has his money to make—and be a dirty broom for a fortune! But any woman's sure of decent handling with Kit Ines—not to speak of lady. He and a mate guard the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
