"Calico" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lanterns, of the shape of cylindrical concertinas, hanging in a row from a slack string, decorated the doorway of what Schomberg called grandiloquently "my concert-hall." In his desperate mood Heyst ascended three steps, lifted a calico curtain, and ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... with the rasped redness of tears around her eyes and mouth, clad in her blue calico wrapper, received them in her best parlor. Eva had made a fire in the best parlor stove early that morning. "Folks will be comin' in all day, I expect," said she, speaking with nervous catches ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... always a possibility of aid from one or other of the acquaintances whom he sought. The net result of the night's campaign was half-a-pint of 'four-half.' The front of a draper's shop in Kennington tempted him sorely; he passed it many times, eyeing the rolls of calico and flannel exposed just outside the doorway. But either courage failed him or there was no really good opportunity. Midnight found him still without means of retiring to that familiar lodging in the New Cut. At half-past twelve sleet began to fall. He discovered a very dark corner of a very ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... throw some article in the grave, either food, clothing, or other material. There was no rule stating the nature of what was to be added to the collection, simply a requirement that something must be deposited, if it were only a piece of soiled and faded calico. After the corpse was lowered into the grave some brave addressed the dead, instructing him to walk directly westward, that he would soon discover moccasin tracks, which he must follow until he came to a great river, which is the ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... generally prove the dearest in the end. The following rules may assist you in this respect, if under the necessity of relying upon your own judgment. Be careful, in purchasing articles, such as linen, calico, &c., for a specific purpose, to have it the proper width. A great deal of waste may be incurred, by inattention ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... stepping up to the overseer, who, in his Guernsey shirt, calico inexpressibles, and straw hat, his hands in his pockets and a cigar in his mouth, was lounging about, and apparently troubling himself very little about his employer. "Mr Bleaks, will you be so good as to have the gig and my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... many. He was also invited to join the "Lambs"—Redmondese for Lamba Theta—a compliment rarely paid to a Freshman. As a preparatory initiation ordeal he had to parade the principal business streets of Kingsport for a whole day wearing a sunbonnet and a voluminous kitchen apron of gaudily flowered calico. This he did cheerfully, doffing his sunbonnet with courtly grace when he met ladies of his acquaintance. Charlie Sloane, who had not been asked to join the Lambs, told Anne he did not see how Blythe could do it, and HE, for ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... her heels, passed Ann Gossaway's cottage the next morning on her way to the post-office—her daily custom—the dressmaker, who was sitting in the window, one eye on her needle and the other on the street, craned her head clear of the calico curtain framing the sash ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of this Ninth Crusade are yet to be written,—the tale of a mission that seemed to our age far more quixotic than the quest of St. Louis seemed to his. Behind the mists of ruin and rapine waved the calico dresses of women who dared, and after the hoarse mouthings of the field guns rang the rhythm of the alphabet. Rich and poor they were, serious and curious. Bereaved now of a father, now of a brother, now of more than these, they came seeking a life work in planting New England ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... to 'em and talk it over with 'em. And I don't see where the beauty on't would come in; of course a woman couldn't change her clothes and put on Greek drapery right in the midst of cleanin' the buttery shelves or moppin' off the back steps. And to see a woman standin' up on a pedestal with an old calico dress pinned up round her waist and a slat sunbunnet on and her pardner's rubber boots, and her sleeves rolled up, and her face red as blood with hard work, and her hands all swelled up with hot soap suds and lye, what beauty would there be in it? It always did seem onreasonable ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... to go slowly through the narrow streets of the village to avoid the risk of running over the crowds of children. I never saw so many. Eight or ten at each door! They all seemed to be of the same age, and all were dressed in red calico, which made a very pretty note of color against the shabby houses. There are a great many manufactories about here, and I suppose ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... instead of the coarse brown native-made cloth. The blue-jeans coat was ornamented with brass buttons and cost one dollar and twenty-five cents a yard, a high price for that locality and time. His wife wore a calico dress for company, while the neighbor wives wore homespun linsey-woolsey. The new house was referred to as the Crystal Palace. When John and Jane Clemens attended balls—there were continuous balls during the holidays—they were considered ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... against the wall, swept up the bits of bark and ashes beside the stove, made sure that the water bucket was standing full on its bench beside the door, sent another critical glance around the room, and tip-toed over to the dish cupboard and let down the flowered calico curtain that had been looped up over a nail for convenience. The sun sent a bright, wide bar of yellow light across the room to rest on the shelf behind the stove where stood the salt can, the soda, the teapot, a box of matches and two pepper cans, one empty and the other ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... out of men's earnings, but out of their own; put on to give some man a treat or to fire the envy of other girls. The factory girl has taken to silk stockings and fine lingerie and the lady to Balbriggan and calico. ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... trouble of taking the cargo ashore. The officers were dressed in the costume which we found prevailed through the country. A broad-brimmed hat, usually of a black or dark-brown color, with a gilt or figured band round the crown, and lined inside with silk; a short jacket of silk or figured calico, (the European skirted body-coat is never worn;) the shirt open in the neck; rich waistcoat, if any; pantaloons wide, straight, and long, usually of velvet, velveteen, or broadcloth; or else short breeches and white stockings. They wear the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... spirits for our own use. The rest is common stuff and is intended as presents. Our main drink will be tea and chocolate. These are invaluable for the traveler. I have, besides, large quantities of calico, brass stair rods, beads, and powder. These are the money of Africa, and pass current everywhere. With these we shall pay our carriers and boatmen, with these purchase the right of way through the various tribes we shall meet. Moreover ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... what was coming next. Rising from her chair, Augusta led the way to a door which opened out of the sitting-room, and gently turned the handle and entered. Eustace followed her. The room was a small bed-room, of which the faded calico blind had been pulled down; as it happened, however, the sunlight, such as it was, beat full upon the blind, and came through it in yellow bars. They fell upon the furniture of the bare little room, they fell ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... have. But—man, man—it takes more than just blood, three begrudged meals a day and a skimpy calico dress to prove real fatherhood. But I'm not blaming you any more than I'm ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... pleasure stick themselves up like logs of wood or trusses of hay before a row of lurid lamps, to admire some painted men and women mincing up and down the stage, or peer through two telescopes at forests of painted calico and moons cut out of pasteboard, or listen to hackneyed airs which have been sung and resung a hundred times—worn up, in ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... the exact reproduction of the dress worn by workers on the plantations. For the women, a gray calico shirt and coarse petticoat of percaline with two coarse handkerchiefs (mouchoirs fatas), one for her neck, and one for the head, over which is worn a monstrous straw hat;—she walks either barefoot or shod with rude native sandals, and she carries a hoe. For the man the costume consists of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... much with her, only showing that, when she brought in the supper, one window had been open, and the blinds, common calico ones, drawn down, thus rendering it possible for a person to lurk unseen in the court, and enter by the window. Her master had assigned no reason for sending for Mr. Ward. She did not know whether Mr. Axworthy had any memorandum-book; she ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... newfangled shops, where there's half-a-dozen fine gents wi' their chins propped up wi' a stiff stock, a-looking like bottles wi' ornamental stoppers, an' all got to get their dinner out of a bit o' calico; it stan's to reason you must pay three times the price you pay a packman, as is the nat'ral way o' gettin' goods,—an' pays no rent, an' isn't forced to throttle himself till the lies are squeezed out on him, whether he will or no. But lors! mum, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... of my life was when we reached the mission. They took my buckskin dress off, saying I was now a little Christian girl and must dress like all the white people at the mission. Oh, how I hated that stiff new calico dress and those leather shoes. But, little as I was, I said nothing, only thought of the time when I should be grown, and do as my mother did, and wear the buckskins ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... Amedee Violette's grief. L'Atelier, when played the first week in April, did not obtain more than a respectful greeting from the public; it was an indifferent success. This vulgar society, these simple, plain, sentiments, the sweetheart in a calico gown, the respectable old man in short frock and overalls, the sharp lines where here and there boldly rang out a slang word of the faubourg; above all, the scene representing a mill in full activity, with its grumbling ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Mrs. Louderer, laden with bundles, and Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, also laden. We had all been thinking of Cora Belle. Mr. Stewart had sent by mail for her a pair of sandals for everyday wear and a nice pair of shoes, also some stockings. Mrs. Louderer brought cloth for three dresses of heavy Dutch calico, and gingham for three aprons. She made them herself and she sews so carefully. She had bought patterns and the little dresses were stylishly made, as well as well made. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy brought a piece of crossbar with a tiny ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... born on the 1st of March 1826, at Thornliebank, near Glasgow. His father, George Donald the elder, is noticed in an earlier part of the present volume. Sent to labour in a calico print-work in his tenth year, his education was chiefly obtained at evening schools, and afterwards by self-application during the intervals of toil. In his seventeenth year he became apprenticed to a pattern-designer, and having fulfilled ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... impossible not to look at the women. The female followers of the Prophet had, as they always have, some pretence of a veil for their face. In the present instance, they held in their teeth a dirty blue calico rag, which passed over their heads, acting also as a shawl. By this contrivance, intended only to last while the Christians were there, they concealed one side of the face and the chin. No one could behold ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... head, and did that much for him. He was naked. His clothes that the askaris had torn from him had been thrown outside the court, and some one had stolen them. Later they gave him a piece of cheap calico to bind round his waist, but during all that hot afternoon he had nothing to keep the sun from his tortured back; nor would they permit us to ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... colored cloth or silk, with buttons and loopes; over this an ALHAGA or white woolen mantle, so large as to wrap both head and body; a shash or small turban; naked legg'd and armed, but with leather socks like the Turks; rich scymeters, and large calico-sleeved shirts. The ambassador had a string of pearls oddly woven in the turban. Their presents were lions and estridges (ostriches.) But the concourse and tumult of the people was intolerable, so as the officers could keep no order."] and his ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... Rhodes to the strips of red and green and pink calico banding his arms, their fluttering ends very ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... by no means very clearly understood. As we have pointed out, it sometimes acts as an antiseptic or preservative; and this antiseptic or preservative action has been explained on the assumption that insoluble albuminates of lime are formed. Its action in such industries as calico-printing, where it has been used along with casein for fixing colouring matter; or in sugar-refining, where it is used for clarifying the sugar by precipitating the albuminous matter in solution in the saccharine ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... dog and the calico cat Side by side on the table sat; 'Twas half-past twelve, and (what do you think!) Nor one nor t'other had slept a wink! The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate Appeared to know as sure as fate There was going to be a terrible spat. (I wasn't there; I simply ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... eyes, she seemed quite old; for her face was crossed and recrossed with a hundred wrinkles, and around the edges of her bonnet could be seen protruding here and there a tuft of short gray wool. She wore a blue calico gown of ancient cut, a little red shawl fastened around her shoulders with an old-fashioned brass brooch, and a large bonnet profusely ornamented with faded red and yellow artificial flowers. And she was very black,—so black that her toothless gums, revealed ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... broom and a mop. She rolled up her sleeves, disclosing an arm that you well might envy, my dear, you who delight in the display of such charms in parlor or ball room—charms which no cosmetics can rival—turned up the skirt of her neat calico dress, and pinned it behind her supple waist, donned a large coarse apron that she had borrowed with the rest of her outfit, ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... brought hither from Cochin in great abundance if the Portugals would be quiet men. It is about two yards broad or better and very strong cloth, and is called cachade Comoree. It would certainly sell well in England for sheeting." Here we see the genesis of the calico trade. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... demanded Tobey, and Tim unhooked a calico bag from the saddlebow and held it out. A laugh ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... are known as haberdashery. He marked how this and that were done, and in what sort to fashion his visage and frame his phrases to this or that woman. His oncoming was rapid. He could measure, cut, and wrap in a parcel twelve yards of brown or white calico quicker than any one in the shop, and he understood by rote the folds of linen tablecloths and bedsheets; and in the town this was said of him: "Shopmen quite ordinary can sell what a customer wants; Pugh Rees Jones can sell ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... Dodge were sitting outside on the porch. Both girls were sewing heart-shaped pieces of white cloth upon squares of turkey-red calico. ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... will) this calico fade? (Shall, will) you give the organ grinder some money? (Shall, will) I raise the window? (Should, ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... mordanting cotton for the mordant group of dye-stuffs is that in which the cotton is impregnated with a salt of the mordant oxide derived from a volatile acid such as acetic acid, and then subjected to heat or steaming. This method is largely taken advantage of by calico printers for grounds, and dyers might make use of it to a much larger extent than ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... trade goods, including a calico known as Turkey-red, bottles of beads, etc. This and a long conversation with the Baruga men seemed to carry some weight with them, for the Baruga soon returned with one of their number, who turned round in the canoe with ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... the ship, and we gave them some calico and beads, and tobacco, and also bought bows and arrows, and a sea-urchin, paying them in tobacco. They clung to the ship as we got under way, men and women, crying, 'Tobacco!' and frantic to catch any fragment of the precious ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... public service and a public duty; a good mother is the most precious type of common individual a community can have, and to let a woman on the one hand earn a living as we do, by sewing tennis-balls or making cardboard boxes or calico, and on the other, not simply not to pay her, but to impoverish her because she bears and makes sacrifices to rear children, is the most irrational aspect of all the evolved and chancy ideas and institutions that make up the modern State. It is as if we believed our civilization existed to ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... the inner side of the sleeve is open, and merely confined at the wrist with hooks and eyes. A pair of loose trousers, gathered at the waist with a running silken cord, and large at the ankle, forms a prominent feature in the costume, and is made either of calico, shawl-cloth, or Cachmere brocade, according to the finances of the wearer. Instead of stockings they wear a kind of awkward-looking linen bag, yellow or red, soled with thick cloth or felt, the top being edged with shawl-cloth. The shoes are similar to the Turkish ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... our ruin. There is annually brought over to this kingdom near ninety thousand pounds worth of silk, whereof the greater part is manufactured. Thirty thousand pounds more is expended in muslin, holland, cambric, and calico. What the price of lace amounts to, is not easy to be collected from the custom-house book, being a kind of goods that takes up little room, and is easily run; but, considering the prodigious price of a woman's head-dress, at ten, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... into her melancholy eyes, and with it a slight consciousness of superiority to her protectors that was embarrassing to him. For the rest he observed merely that she was small and slightly built, although her figure was hidden in a long "check apron" or calico pinafore with sleeves—a local garment—which was utterly incongruous with her originality. Her skin was olive, inclining to yellow, or rather to that exquisite shade of buff to be seen in the new bark of the ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the floors covered with matting, and furnished with cane-bottomed sofas and marble tables, the windows opening to the ground looking out on the sea, whence a delicious breeze came blowing freshly in. In a short time a tall, dark-skinned man, in a light calico dress, and with straw hat in hand, came into the room. He bowed as he entered, and ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... and give you an account of our proceedings during these last two days. Yesterday, the first of February, at four in the morning, very sleepy, we set off in the diligence which we had taken for ourselves; our sole luggage, two portmanteaus and a carpet bag; our dresses, dark strong calico gowns, large Panama hats, rebosos tied on like scarfs, and thick green barege veils. A government escort of four soldiers with a corporal, renewed four times, accompanied us as far as Cuernavaca, which is about eighteen leagues from Mexico, and the entrance as ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Donegal about four thousand adults, of both sexes, who are obliged to go barefoot during the winter, in the ice and snow—pregnant women and aged people in habitual danger of death from the cold . . . . It is rare to find a man with a calico shirt; but the distress of the women is still greater, if that be possible. There are many hundreds of families in which five or six grown-up women have among them no more than a single dress to go out in . . . . There are about five hundred families who have but one bed each— in which father, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... away from him, still frowning angrily, and strode on down to the creek; but the daughters of Hungry Bill, in their groveling way, seemed to share the low ideals of their father. They were tall and sturdy girls, clad in breezy calico dresses and with their hair down over their eyes; and as they gazed out from beneath their bangs a guilty smile contorted their lips, a smile that ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... you," cried Lanigan, springing to his feet, and throwing the end of his cigar out of the window; "but I say, Calthy, have you any of that fire-blaze calico with the rocket sparks that's been on hand ever ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... calico dress of a blue ground, with a bright yellow vine rambling up its lengths, adorned her round, plump figure; her glossy black hair was plaited, and surmounted with a huge red bow, the ends of which fluttered out bravely; ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... with our other engagements. Poor people always complain that the winter is a hard one, and never are satisfied," remarked Miss Perkins, making her diamonds sparkle as she sewed buttons on the wrong side of a pink calico apron, which would hardly ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... originally was black, but rather streaked with a doubtful colour now, as it had been washed somewhat vigorously at different times; her eyes were blue and very wide open, and her dress, which wanted a pin behind, was of spotted pink calico. Her arms she held rather stiffly away from her clothes, and her fingers were stretched as far apart as they well could be. Yulee was in a hurry, and took her up unceremoniously by the waist, but Miss Phely did not seem at all disturbed, and did not even wink ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... sward, and children were getting as intimate with the turf and the sweet earth as their nurses would let them. We turned into a little cottage, which gave notice of hospitality for a consideration; and were shown, by a pretty maid in calico, into an upper room,—a neat, cheerful, common room, with bright flowers in the open windows, and white muslin curtains for contrast. We looked out on the green and over to the beautiful churchyard, where one of England's greatest painters, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a small, stuffy apartment on the third floor of the house in the Rue St. Antoine. Before her was a sewing-machine, and the floor of the room was littered with oddments of black calico. She herself was seated apparently deep in thought ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at Olmer. His temper was mild, his frame of mind bad as could be. Angry evaporations had left a residuum of solid scorn for these "English," who rewarded soldierly services as though it were a question of damaged packages of calico. He threatened to take the first offer of a foreign State "not in insurrection." But clear sky was overhead. He was the Rowsley of the old boyish delight in field sports, reminiscences of prowlings and trappings in the woods, gropings along water-banks, enjoyment of racy gossip. He spoke wrathfully ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Toads of all sorts and sizes, from the wee baby toads to the great big grandfathers. Then such a strange array of garments!—for they were all dressed. Pauline had made for her pets all kinds of clothes. There they were, hopping around, some in bright calico dresses, and some in the funniest red flannel pants ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... cultivating the islands which they took differed widely from that of the English. Their first step was to compel the natives to embrace Christianity. Their second to make of them docile and obedient laborers, raising spice and other products, for which they received in payment calico, beads, and ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... an' a Frinch cruiser named Lebolt, an' a boot-leggin' tree-spotter named Creed, that lives in Hilarity, an' a couple av worthless divils av sawyers that's too lazy fer honest wor-rk, but camps t'rough th' winter, trappin' an sawin' bird's-eye an calico ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... first worked itself out. In early times, before coin was invented, barter was usually conducted between producer and consumer with metal implements, as it still is in Central Africa at the present day with Venetian glass beads and rolls of red calico. Payments were all made in kind, and bronze was the commonest form of specie. A gentleman desirous of effecting purchases in foreign parts went about the world with a number of bronze axes in his pocket (or its substitute), which he exchanged for ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... table to her kitchen, as most of Old Trail Town did in Winter, Mary had moved her cooking stove into the dining room, had improvised a calico-curtained cupboard for the utensils, and there she lived and sewed. ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... in the doorway of the Davis cabin when I approached to pay my respects. She was wearing a linsey petticoat and a short gown for an overskirt. Her mass of wonderful hair was partly confined by a calico cap, and on her feet were my gift moccasins. She believed she was conforming to the frontier standard of dress, but she was as much out of place as a butterfly at a bear-baiting. Before I could speak she was advancing toward me, her hands ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... arrived! Jasmin does not describe his bride's dress. But he describes his own. "I might give you," he says in his Souvenirs, "a picture of our happy nuptial day. I might tell you at length of my newly dyed hat, my dress coat with blue facings, and my home-spun linen shirt with calico front. But I forbear all details. My godfather and godmother were at the wedding. You will see that the purse did not always respond to the wishes ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... the glass, giving an extra twist to her curl and an additional dash of white powder on her hair—now fretted because the powder was too thick, now fretted because it was too thin? She was as proud in cambric and calico and nankeen as Harriet is to-day in white tulle and organdy. I remember how careful she was when she ran me along the edges of the new dress. With me she clipped and notched and gored and trimmed, and day and night I went click! click! click! and it seemed as if she would ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... beset his brain—dreams upon which Marylyn, despising her father's meaner structures (and kept in ignorance of what might, at any moment, raze them), piled many a rainbow palace. For, to the younger girl, certain calico-covered books on the mantel had invested the events of the fortnight just gone with a delightful ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... the finger-punches of vandals. Even here, at the yamen of the prime minister of China, dirt and dilapidation were evident on every hand. The anteroom into which we were ushered was in keeping with its exterior. The paper that covered the low walls and squatty ceiling, as well as the calico covering on the divans, was soiled and torn. The room itself was filled with mandarins from various parts of the country, waiting for an audience with his excellency. Each wore the official robe and dish-pan hat, with its particular button ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... in the tall grass by the roadside and shook her red curls from her eyes. She gave a breathless gasp and began fanning herself with the flap of her white sunbonnet. A fine moisture shone on her bare neck and arms above her frock of sprigged chintz calico. ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... perfectly round as a Dutch cheese, and her face so thickly freckled that it was all freckles; she had confluent freckles, and as the spots and blotches were of different shades, one could see that they overlapped like the scales of a fish. Her head was bound tightly round with a piece of white calico, and ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... me. Men are nice creeters, but you don't want to see too meny of 'em to once, likeways with wimmen. Josiah looked to me at that moment some like a calico dress that you have picked out of a dense quantity of patterns of calico at a store, it looks better to you when you get it away from the rest. Josiah Allen ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... meeting. He and his daughter spent a great part of the afternoon in arranging the platform and decorating the back wall with a Union Jack, two or three strings of cardpaper-flags that had not seen the light since Coronation Day, and a wall-map of Europe with a legend below it in white calico letters upon red Turkey twill,—"DO GOOD AND FEAR NOT." It had served to decorate many occasions and was as appropriate to this as to ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Surely it is! Come, my child, let me look at you?" He turned up the burner of a BOYCOTLE's Patent Incandescent Gas Lamp (price 13s. 9d. with full paper of instructions complete), and as he stood erect in his rich calico-lined fox-fur dressing-gown (supplied in three qualities by BROHAM & Co, with a discount of 15 per cent. for cash), he looked, every foot of him, a worthy scion of that ancient family of which he was the last living representative. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... clothes off him, and has occasion to be taken up in the night, and if he have not a flannel gown on, is likely to catch cold; on which account I recommend it to be worn. The usual calico night-gown should be ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... throws his present on a common pile in front of the headman, who distributes them among the villagers. It is customary to make the presents appear as large as possible. One fellow has a bolt of calico which he unwinds through the entrance hole, making a great display. It may be thirty yards long. Sometimes they accompany the gift with a short dance. It is considered bad form for one coming from a distance[23] not to make the usual present, ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... her hands were small and tender, perhaps white. And there was a grace in her movements, dispite the ungainly dress and shoes, which suggested a more intimate knowledge of velvets and silks than of calico. In my mind's eye I placed her at the side of Phyllis. Phyllis reminded me of a Venus whom Nature had whimsically left unfinished. Then she had turned from Venus to Diana, and Gretchen became evolved: ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... bed, of the sort called trundle-bed in those days, which could be wheeled under the high-legged bed of the parents, lay the bridegroom, in his wedding-dress and gaitered shoes, with his steeple-crowned hat upon the faded calico quilt beside him, and his face as red as burning fever ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... poet, communicating his designs in a stage soliloquy, disguised himself in a tow wig and beard, and a railway rug turned up with yellow calico; and the scene shifting to the palace, he introduced himself to the Elderly Princess as the greatest ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his employer failed, and for some months Cobden had to take unwelcome holiday. In September he found a situation, and again set out on the road with his samples of muslin and calico prints. Two years afterwards, in 1828, he and two friends determined to begin business on their own account. They arranged with a firm of Manchester calico-printers to sell goods on commission; and so profitable was the enterprise ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... how like an Indian you can make yourselves with blankets and feathers and coloured scarves. Of course none of the children happened to have long black hair, but there was a lot of black calico that had been got to cover school-books with. They cut strips of this into a sort of fine fringe, and fastened it round their heads with the amber-coloured ribbons off the girls' Sunday dresses. Then they stuck turkeys' feathers in the ribbons. The calico looked very like long black hair, especially ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... rooms, intending to put the same carpet in all of them,—a green carpet of the cheapest kind. He wished for the plainest uniformity in this retreat, and Madame de la Chanterie approved of the idea. She calculated, with Manon's assistance, the number of yards of white calico required for the window curtains, and also for those of the modest iron bed; and she undertook to buy and have them made for a price so moderate as to surprise Godefroid. Having brought with him a certain amount of furniture, the whole cost of fitting ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... Heman got his start tradin' over in the South Seas. Sellin' the Kanakas glass beads and calico for pearls and copra—two cupfuls of pearls for every bead. Anyhow, that's the ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... air; to one who knew what common glory was a-blowing and a-growing there without, the bare seclusion of the house might well seem invaded by it, like a heavenly flood. Phoebe, too, in her pink calico, appeared to spread abroad the richness of her youth and bloom, and radiate a certain light about her where she stood. She was tall, her proportions were ample, and her waist very trim. She had the shoulders and arms of the women of an elder time, whom we classify vaguely ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... behind the trenches. All day long the big guns boom. By night the rifles and machine-guns take up the tale. One is frequently aroused from slumber, especially towards dawn, by a perfect tornado of firing. The machine-guns make a noise like a giant tearing calico. Periodically, too, as already stated, we are subjected to an hour's intimidation in the shape of bombardment. Shrapnel bursts over our heads; shells explode in the streets, especially in open spaces, or where two ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... old M. Bidois for her neighbour, and hints pretty audibly that Madame Bernard monopolizes all the young beaux. A young man of about twenty, tall, well-made, with handsome features, whose intelligent expression announces that he is intended for higher things than perpetually to be measuring yards of calico, is seated at the right hand of Eugenie. That young man, whose name is Adolphe, is assistant in a fashionable warehouse where Madame Moutonnet deals; and as he always gives good measure, she has asked him to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... much paper and too much string." Suddenly Peter reddened with embarrassment. "Not that that makes any difference to a big firm like this," he apologized, "but in a small place every little counts." He turned the package deftly and began to illustrate his method. "When you're tying up calico with one hand and taking in eggs and butter with the other and telling three people the price of things at the same time," he explained, "you have to notice ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... follower of the poet in all his merry expeditions with "Yill-caup commentators." He was present in Poosie Nansie's when the Jolly Beggars first dawned on the fancy of Burns: the comrades of the poet's heart were not generally very successful in life: Smith left Mauchline, and established a calico-printing manufactory at Avon near Linlithgow, where his friend found him in all appearance prosperous in 1788; but this was not to last; he failed in his speculations and went to the West Indies, and died early. His wit was ready, and ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... as he glanced ahead and noticed the trim figure of Medaine Robinette swinging along the road, old Lost Wing, as usual, trailing in her rear, astride a calico pony and leading the saddle horse which she evidently had become tired of riding. A small switch was in one hand, and she flipped it at the new leaves of the aspens and the broad-leafed mullens beside the road. As yet, she had ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... enjoying their suspense, and with a twinkle in his eye proceeded slowly, "I was sort of loafin' around town one day about two weeks ago when I come across a Seminole, who, I reckon, had been sent in by his squaw to trade for red calico and beads," he paused for a ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... eyebrows, appeared twice its natural dimensions. The throat was bare to the collar-bones. A huge wig covered the head, falling over the shoulders; while the whole was encircled by a great wreath of pink calico roses, the back of which, just under the nape of the neck, was fastened by a glittering pinchbeck tassel. The arms were nude, their natural growth of dark hair being plastered over with white chalk, which had a singularly ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... the money, and then handed her an old broken-handled crockery teapot, which, in place of a lid, was covered over with a strip of ti-tree bark, firmly secured to the bottom by a strip of dirty calico. ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... however, was an uninvited guest, for just as Bab and Betty sat down on the porch steps, in their stiff pink calico frocks and white ruffled aprons, to repose a moment before the party came in, a rustling was heard among the lilacs and out stepped Alfred Tennyson Barlow, looking like a small Robin Hood, in a green blouse with a silver buckle on his broad belt, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... were falling from my lips, we approached the end of our journey, the Roslin Inn house heaving in sight, at the door of which me and Peter louped out, an hostler with a yellow striped waistcoat, and white calico sleeves, I meantime holding the naig's head, in case it should spend off, and capsize the concern. After seeing the horse and gig put into the stable, Peter and I pulled up our shirt necks, and after looking at our watches, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... fragment of calico, large enough for a dress and skirt, with enough over, a queer, three-cornered piece, which she pinned about the unequal shoulders for a shawl. Upon the bonnet she worked ...
— The Potato Child and Others • Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
... the end of twenty minutes, and shut himself up and went home. I thought I was going to have at last some peace, when a corncrake—a creature upon whom Nature has bestowed a song like to the tearing of calico-sheets mingled with the sharpening of saws—settled somewhere in the garden and set to work to praise its Maker according to its lights. I have a friend, a poet, who lives just off the Strand, and spends his evenings ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... place there was a hut made of calico stretched on a frame of wood, in which were sold brandy and other strong liquors of the most abominable kind, at a charge of about two shillings for a small glass! Cards were also to be found there by those who wished to gamble away their hard-earned gains or double them. Places of iniquity these, ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... said slaves went to de white folks' church 'til dey got some churches for colored folks. Church days was big days wid folks den 'cause dey didn't have meetin' evvy Sunday. Slave 'omans had percale or calico dresses, brogan shoes, and big home-made bonnets wid slats in de brims for Sunday-go-to-meetin' wear, and if it was cold dey wropt up in shawls. Menfolks wore cotton shirts and pants. Dey had grand preachin' dem days and folks ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... upon the rug, but in a short time he returned to his former seat on the northwest side of the lodge. The sweat-house priest appeared with a large buffalo robe which he spread before the song priest, the head pointing north, and upon this various kinds of calico were laid, carefully folded the length of the robe. There were many yards of this. Upon the calico was spread a fine large buckskin, and on this white muslin; these were all gifts from the invalid to the song priest. ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... carpenters, blacksmiths, millers, with five seamstresses in the house. In the house, under the mistress's eye, were cut and made the clothes of all the negroes, two woolen and two cotton suits a year, with a gay calico Sunday dress for each woman. The women were taught sewing in the house. When their babies were born a nurse was provided, and all the mother's work done for her for a month, and for a year she was allowed ample leisure for the care of the ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... wares, and materials, large and small, coarse and fine, foreign and domestic, which pertain to the clothing, convenience, and garnishing, by night and by day, of men, women, and children: from a button to a blanket; from a calico to a carpet; from stockings to a head-dress; from an inside handkerchief to a waterproof; from a piece of tape to a thousand bales of shirtings; not forgetting linen, silk, or woollen fabrics, for drapery or upholstery, for bed or table, including hundreds of items which time would fail me to recite. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... Beverly for being "no sort of a sport," and "scared to back her painted plug against their thoroughbreds." They were honorable lads and would have felt honor-bound to respect Mrs. Ashby's wishes. But not having heard, they gave Beverly "all that was coming to her for riding a calico nag," though said "nag" was certainly ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... her to let him do the work, but she said a man never knew how to do anything, anyway. So he sat down on the steps to see how it would turn out. She said afterwards that he kicked the ladder, but however that may be, there was an earthquake, and when he looked up the air was filled with calico, toweling, striped stockings, polonaise, trailing arbutus, red petticoats, store hair and step ladder. He said the step ladder struck the veranda last, but as he picked her off of it, it seemed as though it must have lit first. He said the step ladder must have kicked up. ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... was a mater of the greatest pride with her, these charms. I was very much captivated by her splendid appearance and could not keep my eyes from her. Next day Mrs. John Staton, a country neighbor of my aunts, came in to make a visit, She was very plain, wore a calico dress, waist-apron, and she was knitting a sock. After she left aunt said to me: "Carry, you did not seem to like Mrs. Staton's society as you did Mrs. Porter's; but one sentence of Mrs. Staton's is worth all Mrs. Porter said. Mrs. Porter lives for this world, Mrs. Staton lives for ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... each district the same occupations are pursued. But when roads and other means of transit become numerous and good, the different districts begin to assume different functions, and to become mutually dependent. The calico manufacture locates itself in this county, the woollen-cloth manufacture in that; silks are produced here, lace there; stockings in one place, shoes in another; pottery, hardware, cutlery, come to have their special towns; and ultimately every locality ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... annually on this day throughout all this part of the country; in all the villages there were little shrines erected, adorned with strings of blue corncockle, narcissus heads, and poppies, bunches of green, pink, and white calico, moss and fir-tree branches, and in the midst of these tastefully arranged bowers was an image of the Virgin and her Son, with whatever other saints the place was ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... "Six calico shirts, twenty-four francs; as many linen shirts, forty-eight francs; let us say seventy-two. That makes four hundred and sixty-eight francs altogether.—Say five hundred, including cravats and pocket-handkerchiefs; a hundred francs for the laundress —six hundred. And now, how much for your ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... for them. The negro kings also make atrocious wars with each other, and with the same object. Then the vanquished adults, the women and children, reduced to slavery, are sold by the vanquishers for a few yards of calico, some powder, a few firearms, pink or red pearls, and often even, as Livingstone says, in periods of famine, for a few ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... across the prairie toward her, and the girl smiled when she saw him and stopped to watch his calico pony lope unevenly across the grass-covered slope. The pony was prone to drop into a rough trot at short intervals, and at such times was urged to renewed efforts by a dig of its rider's heels in the under regions of its stunted body. In order ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... defend it from the Nchu'u or white ants, and each has its mosquito bar, an oblong square, large enough to cover the whole couch and to reach the ground; the material is either fine grass- cloth, from the Ashira country, a light stuff called "Mbongo," or calico and blue baft from which the stiffening has been washed out. It is far superior to the flimsy muslin affairs supplied in an Anglo-Indian outfit, or to the coarse matting used in Yoruba. Provided with this solid defence, which may be bought in any shop, one can indulge one's self by sleeping in ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... frizzes which fashion demands should be worn, will fade in course of time; and though they matched the natural hair perfectly at first, they will finally present a lighter tint. If the hair is brown this can be remedied. Obtain a yard of dark brown calico. Boil it until the color has well come out into the water. Then into this water dip the hair, and take it out and dry it. Repeat the operation until it shall be of the required depth ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... rendered stationary by a secret order from the storm phantom, who, as everybody knows, is called Adamastor. MM. Moncharmin and Richard were the shipwrecked mariners amid this motionless turmoil of a calico sea. They made for the left boxes, plowing their way like sailors who leave their ship and try to struggle to the shore. The eight great polished columns stood up in the dusk like so many huge piles supporting the threatening, crumbling, big-bellied cliffs whose layers were represented by the ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... is given up to manufacture: the places round Warwick and Coventry to a great extent share in the silk trade, while Alcester has a needle manufacture of its own, Atherstone a hat manufacture, and Amworth, which is partly in Staffordshire, was famous until lately for calico-printing and making superfine narrow woollen cloths: it also has flax-mills. The kings of Mercia used to keep state here, and the Roman road, Watling Street, passed through it, with which contrast now the iron roads that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... be dyed by the process just given for red grounds; or, prepare in neutral red oil, in the proportion of 150 grms. per liter of water for pieces and 15 kilos for 100 kilos of yarns. For pieces, pad with an ordinary machine with rollers covered with calico. Dry the pieces in the drum, and the yarn in the stove. Steam three-quarters of an hour at 11/2 atmosphere. Mordant in pyrolignite of alumina at 10 deg. B., and wash thoroughly. Dye for an hour at 70 deg., and half an hour longer at the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... apartment. The walls, floor, and ceiling were of unpainted wood, but the wood was perfectly fresh, and smelt pleasantly of resin. The window was preposterously small, with only four squares of glass in it, and it was curtained with mere calico, but the calico was rose-coloured, which imparted a delightfully warm glow to the room, and the view from the window of pine-woods and cliffs, and snow-fields, backed by the distant sea, was magnificent. ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... a skein of thread, or a quintal of codfish, to a pound of nails. On one side, as you entered, were ranges of shelves, protected by a counter, on which were exposed rolls of flannels of divers colors, and calico and broadcloth, and other "dry goods," while a showcase on the counter contained combs, and tooth-brushes, and soaps, and perfumery, and a variety of other small articles. The back of the store was used as a receptacle for hogsheads of molasses, and puncheons of rum and wine, and barrels ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... now went on briskly. Some kind ladies sent a piece of strong calico to make him some shirts, and from morning to night Mrs Hadden's busy fingers were plying her needle till they were finished. Other friends supplied his different wants, and he was soon quite ready to accompany ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... her a flaxen-haired cottage girl, with an honest freckled face and a calico-bonnet; a girl who was always swinging on five-barred gates, or overturning a baby brother out of a primitive wooden cart—surely this girl was faithful, and would help her in her extremity. In all the world, there was no other creature to whom she ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... bands and cordings round the crown and front; and I have a dress of gros d'Afrique, too, trimmed with double folds piped on. For every-day I have a new black mousseline with white clover leaves on it, and an all-black French chally to wear to dinner. I don't wear my black and white calico at all. Next summer aunt means to have me wear white almost all the time, with lavender and violet ribbons. I shall have a white muslin with three skirts and a black sash to wear to parties and to Public Saturdays, next ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... petticoats and 'bedgowns' [like a dressing-sack], and often went without shoes in the summer. Some had bonnets and bedgowns made of calico, but generally of linsey; and some of them wore men's hats. Their hair was commonly clubbed. Once, at a large meeting, I noticed there but two women that had on long gowns. One of these was laced genteelly, and the body of the other was ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... doubts were finally resolved. His stub of a tail jerked spasmodically, in its struggle to wag. Then with two or three delirious yelps of joy he started madly down the lane. At the sound of his voice the door of the gray house opened. A tall, thin woman in a bluish homespun skirt and red calico waist came out, and moved slowly across the yard to welcome the ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... rode at anchor in Mandell Bay. The few Mandell men, who survived because their wounds had prevented their crawling into the cave, went to work at the best of the Sunlanders and dug in the ground. They hunt and fish no more, but receive a daily wage, with which they buy flour, sugar, calico, and such things which the Search Number Two brings on her yearly trip from ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... the knot at her neck, and stuck out there and dangled about her face in spite of the attempts made to gather it under the control of the high horn comb holding its main strands together. The lankness of her long figure showed in the calico wrapper which seemed her sole garment; and her large features were respectively lank in their way, nose and chin and high cheek bones; her eyes wabbled in their sockets with the sort of inquiring laughter that spread her wide, loose mouth. She ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... him before, was now heaped and tumbled with broken bones, cans, scattered provisions, pots, pans, blankets, and clothing in the foul confusion of a dust-heap. But in this heterogeneous mingling the boy's quick eye caught sight of a draggled edge of calico. ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... in the young man and, being a lawyer of prominence on the Cape, was an influential friend worth having. The law occupied young Kent's attention in the evenings; he kept Mr. Bassett's books and sold Mr. Bassett's brown sugar, calico and notions during the days, not because he loved the work, the place, or its proprietor, but because the twelve dollars paid him each Saturday enabled him to live. And, in order to live so cheaply that he might save a bit toward the purchase of clothes, law books and sundries, ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln |
