"Darn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tell you what we'll do: I'll take off these socks if he'll return what he's got on that belongs to me. I don't remember exactly, but I'm darn sure of his underwear and his breeches. You see, while you good people at home are talking democracy we're practicing it, and Sands' idea is the best yet. He swaps an entire outfit for a pair of socks. Even the Democratic Party can't ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... these men of the Eighth can whittle, and I presume they can say "Darn it," if occasion requires; but just now track-laying was the business ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... woman. She sat down, accordingly, with a sigh of impatience at her work-table, turning her back to the door. Perhaps, when he saw her inhospitable attitude, he might go away and not bother her. And Mrs Morgan took out some stockings to darn, as being a discontented occupation, and was considering within herself what simple preparation she could have instead of the All-Souls pudding, when, looking up suddenly, she saw, not Mr Proctor, but the Rector, standing looking down upon her within a few steps of her chair. ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... At the tracks the air don't taste as good or smell as good. It's because a man like Jerry Tillford, who knows what he does, could see a horse like Sunstreak run, and kiss a woman like that the same day. I can't make it out. Darn him, what did he want to do like that for? I keep thinking about it and it spoils looking at horses and smelling things and hearing niggers laugh and everything. Sometimes I'm so mad about it I want to fight someone. It gives me the fantods. What did ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... you shouldn't go to bed at half-past eight, or nine at the latest. No reason whatever. And if you're quick and handy —and I'm sure you are—you'll have plenty of time in the afternoon for plain sewing and darning. I shall see how you can darn," Mrs. Lessways ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Quentin!" Dick interrupted fiercely. "Don't you go congratulating me. I feel darn small potatoes just now. You're quitting the game because I beat you out on the St. ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... nobody can notice," replied the other bystander. "All I wants is to see the perfesser git his rights. I was totin' his stuff ter town, an' I'm in his pay. I stick fer the hunderd, an' you can whine all ye darn please." ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... with two rows of buttons, hussar fashion, formed a sort of buckler. The trousers, though October was nearing its close, were made of black lasting, and gave testimony to long service by the projection of a darn on the otherwise polished surface covering the knees, the polish being produced by the rubbing of the hands upon those parts. But, in broad daylight, the feature of the old savant's appearance which struck ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman's, I sit low in a straw-bottom chair and carefully darn my ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... Mary IS a child, Robert. She must be fifty years old, at the least. She and her aunt are about the same age. Perhaps if her mother had lived, or she hadn't made so many sheets, or learned to knit and darn and cook—" The minister's kind little wife finished out her sentence with a sigh. She took up a little garment in dire straits to be mended. It suggested things ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... the man shouted, and Dexter Beers and the young man came hurrying up. "Better look out for that gal—I believe she's gone crazy!" he called out. "I can't leave this darned beast—she'll get kicked to death if she don't look out. That old white won't stan' a woman in the stall. Whoa, there! whoa, darn ye! ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... come here with that mistaken idea. There won't be any sort of work of any kind expected from you. I poke my own fires, and I carve my own bit of mutton. And I haven't got a nasty little dog to be washed. And I don't care twopence about worsted work. I have a maid to darn my stockings, and because she has to work, I pay her wages. I don't like being alone, so I get you to come and live with me. I breakfast at nine, and if you don't manage to be down by that time, I ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... of 'em," answered Barker. "Sharks got 'em, most likely; and I only wonder they didn't get me, too. But, I say, mister, what sort of a steamer do you call this of yourn? Darn my ugly buttons, but she's the all-firedest queer-lookin' packet that I ever set eyes on. And what may you be doin' down in these ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... judge," observed the secretary, "that it's for Mr. Maguire to say, or not to say, just as he darn pleases." ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... because every literate and half-literate person on Earth is curious about the Galactics. The book tells everything I know about the trip and the people. It is a matter of public record. Since that is so, I refused to answer a lot of darn-fool questions—by which I mean that I refuse to answer any more questions that you already know the answers to. I am not being stubborn; I am just sick and ...
— A World by the Tale • Gordon Randall Garrett
... there in six days I was, and most kindly they received me. The tanner had some excellent daughters, I forget how many; very pretty damsels, and well set up, and able to make good pastry. But though they asked me many questions, and made a sort of lord of me, and offered to darn my stockings (which in truth required it), I fell asleep in the midst of them, although I would not acknowledge it; and they said, "Poor cousin! he is weary", and led me to a blessed bed, and kissed me all ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... just Siwash College. I built it myself with a typewriter out of memories, legends, and contributed tales from a score of colleges. I have tried to locate it myself a dozen times, but I can't. I have tried to place my thumb on it firmly and say, "There, darn you, stay put." But no halfback was ever so elusive as this infernal college. Just as I have it definitely located on the Knox College campus, which I myself once infested, I look up to find it on the Kansas prairies. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... babies born in a graveyard. I'm whipped, sir. I ain't never had much of a chance to make a extry dollar: I thought this fire had give me a chance. My shop was left, full of flour. I was bakin' all night; but darn me if I kin put the screw onto babies, and women in childbed. You shall have my horse and cart and all my bakery for 'em. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... resting, both count her blessings and dream, offering hospitality to all and any pleasant visions which might elect to visit her. And, indeed, those blessings appeared a goodly company, worthy of congratulation and of gratitude. She let the black silk stocking, the toe of which she affected to darn, slip neglected on to the floor while she added up the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... courage o' yourn, old fellow; this citizen can go two pins above it. If you wants a showin', just name the mark. I've seed ye times enough,—how ye would not stand ramrod when a nigger looked lightning at ye. Twice I seed a nigger make ye show flum; and ye darn't make the cussed critter toe the line trim up, nohow," he mumbles out, dropping his tumbler on the table, spilling his liquor. They are Graspum's "men;" they move as he directs-carry out his plans of trade in human flesh. Through these promulgators of his plans, his plots, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... there was no fool like an old one. Just let him get back to his old Abigail and there'd be no more wandering-boy business for him! Abigail might not have the figure or the complexion that Georgie had, but she was a darn sight more reliable. Henceforth she could have him from five p.m. to nine a.m. without reserve. As for kicking over the traces, sowing wild oats and that sort of thing, there was nothing in it for him. Give him ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... "No-o, darn it. I s'pose not," replied Jonathan slowly, as if he were not quite sure. His face wore a puzzled expression, the problem offered by this conflict of ethical obligations with caste sentiment being evidently too much for his boyish intellect. Evidently ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... over to the shelf to get her work, she paused a moment beside her flowers to cheer herself once more with their brightness. Sitting down by the table, she began to darn one of her husband's thick woolen socks. An instant later she was startled by a loud ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... chaos to some sort of order, but for a great while it was a hopeless attempt. At last, extricating himself from his importunate friends, he gained the captain's side. Panting, almost breathless, with sweat streaming off him, he gasped out, "Oh, cap'n, dese yer darn niggers all gone mad! Dribe 'em oberbord; clar 'em out, 'n I'll stan' by to grab some o' der likely ones as de res' scatter." "But what about the wages?" said the skipper. "I'm not goin' ter give 'em whatever they like to ask." "You leab it ter me, cap'n. ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... "There, darn ye!" said the Object at last. "I've eat all I can eat for a year. You think you're mighty smart, don't ye? But if you choose to pay that high for your fun, I s'pose you can afford it. Only don't let me catch you around these streets ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... said Clark philosophically. "I don't mean the wedding—reckon that's all right, though I don't guess Nancy cared a darn about him. But it's a crime for a nice girl like that to hurt her ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... never before so practical in its instruction as it is to-day. In most of the junior and senior high schools, industrial work and agriculture are taught. In the best schools girls are learning to sew, mend, darn and cook. Many of them make their own dresses and trim their own hats. In a few schools, uniform dress and shoes are adopted by the girl students for the sake of economy and to prevent the silly mode of dressing and the style of some ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... moonlight, and listen with quivering nerves for her step—perhaps she will send for the tray, and not come after all. What a fool I am to be disturbed by a grey-clad witch with a tantalizing mouth! That comes of loafing about doing nothing. I mentally darn the old fool who saved her money instead of spending it. Why the devil should I be bothered? I don't want it anyhow. She comes in as I fume, and I forget everything at her entrance. I push the armchair towards the table, and she sinks quietly into it, pulling ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... not white girls blown with fat who puff and pant; * The maid for me is young brunette embonpoint-scant. I'd rather ride a colt that's darn upon the day * Of race, and set ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... however, they had an early supper and she finished her dishes betimes and sat down to darn stockings in the sitting-room. Erastus had hurried away to a meeting of his henchmen in the town, and would not be home until after his wife was ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... that afterwards. Then I got busy. If you was in the hands of that guy, and his gang, the chances was dead against you. But there wasn't a darn thing I could do, except to hunt up Hobart, wire every town along the north shore to keep an eye out for the yacht, and pick up a thread or two around town. I got a bit at that to wise me up. We found Hobart hid away in a cheap hotel out on ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... man had a pleasant way with him, too—darn him—with his bright, twinkling eye and his silly little beard), "I'm sure I don't want to be discourteous. If you move me on from here, of course I'll go; but I warn you I shall lie in wait for Mr. McGill just down ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... night. She took up one of her father's novels and put it down again, fretted up to her own room for some work, sat on her bed and meditated upon the room that she was now really abandoning forever, and returned at length with a stocking to darn. Her aunt was making herself cuffs out of little slips of insertion under ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... were remembered against him in an affectionate way by the use of Yale for several years of 'Pa' Corbin's oft reiterated expression brought forth by Pudge's greenness, which would cause 'Pa' to exclaim: 'Darn you, Heffelfinger!' with ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... used to fill in a hole with thread, so as to supply the part that has been destroyed or to strengthen a place which shows signs of weakness. A darning-ball, a gourd, or a firm piece of cardboard should be placed under the hole. The darn should extend one quarter of an inch beyond the edge of the material, beginning with fine stitches in the material, making rows running close together in one direction, then crossing these threads with ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... it if I had, drunk or sober! And—oh, now I got it!" Bill's voice was full of elation. "You was goin' to kiss the bride—that was it, it was you goin' to kiss her, and she slap—no, by hokey, she didn't slap you, she just—or was it Rock, now?" Doubt filled his eyes distressfully. "Darn my everlastin' hide," he finished lamely, "there was some kissin' somew'ere in the deal, and I mind her cryin' afterwards, but whether it was about that, or—Say, Sandy, what was it Ford was lickin' the preacher for? Wasn't it ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... at present do her own laundry-work, she insisted upon darning and patching and mending as only she could darn and ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... "Darn!" exclaimed Miss Elizabeth Compton as she drew in beside the curb and stopped. Although she knew perfectly well that one of the tires was punctured, she got out and walked around in front as though in search of the cause of the disturbance, ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... succeeded are so apt to tell new aspirants not to aspire, because the thing to be done may probably be beyond their reach. "My dear young lady, had you not better stay at home and darn your stockings?" "As, sir, you have asked for my candid opinion, I can only counsel you to try some other work of life which may be better suited to your abilities." What old-established successful author has not said such words as these to humble aspirants ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... as some thinks I am," he blurted out, while his dull eyes flashed; "and, by gosh, I want that darn well understood between you and me, Mr. Gaston! I don't want any interference in my affairs; but as to what you're drivin' at, perhaps, I'll say this. I'm going to let Joyce have her ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... their rock; you can do it easily by slipping under them your finger-nail, or the edge of a pewter spoon. Take care to tear the sucking base as little as possible (though a small rent they will darn for themselves in a few days, easily enough, and drop them into a basket of wet sea-weed; when you get home turn them into a dish full of water and leave them for the night, and go to look at them ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... driving at? Red roses! Drawing lessons! What's that got to do with whether you'll run down to Boston for dinner with me tonight? You do talk the greatest lot of stuff! But have it your own way. I'm satisfied. Just jump in beside me! Will you? Darn it! I haven't the ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... "Darn it!" said the engaging youth to himself "It's none of her business, anyway, what I do!" But it made him acutely uneasy none the less. He was the possessor of a good income, as he stood there, this mild little blond; it came to him steadily ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... we darned stockings. This sounds queer, but nevertheless it is true. The Schiskines had just bought a darning-machine. They paid eighty-six dollars for it; but to darn, one must have holes, and no holes could be found in a single decent stocking, so they had to cut holes, and then we darned. The Grand Duke was so enchanted with this darning that he is going to take a machine home to the Grand Duchess, ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... "Oh, darn your shoes!" cried Donald hotly. "Forget 'em! I've got to move on or I'll be late for trigonometry, but I don't know when I've had such a tidy little fight with a girl, and I don't enjoy feeling that I have been worsted. I propose ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... right back where I had started, and for the moment didn't care a darn either. Sin is glorious when you ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... just like a woman. If a man looks a trifle pale, and dark under the eyes, she begins to fancy he's dying. My poor little wife takes just the same notions into her head, and would like me to stop at home every evening to watch her darn the children's stockings." ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... have a fit. I'll just roll 'em up, and take 'em home with me to-night and darn 'em by hand." She laughed at herself, a little shame-faced ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... "Sech a skunk don't know the meanin' o' the word. Darn ye!" he continued, turning upon his prisoner, and shaking him till the links in the steel shirt chinked, "I feel as if I ked drive the blade o' my bowie inter ye through them steel fixin's ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... I'm going to enforce my demands! I've got to have money. I darn't sell your diamonds—at least I don't want to. I'd rather you'd have them," and he seemed to weaken as if with romance when it came to this sentiment. "As ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... husband after Mary had gone away. "She gains all the time in patience and industry, and is twice as careful of her things as she used to be. I found her crying the other day because she had torn her oldest frock, and the darn was sure to come in a bad place when the frock was made over for Gretchen! Think of Mary's crying because of having torn ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... of the thread; to run; to stitch; to "sew';" to fell, or otherwise to make a double seam; to herring-bone (essential for flannels); to hem; to sew over; to bind; to sew on a button; to make a button-hole; to darn; and to fine-draw. He should also practise taking patterns of some articles of clothing in paper, cutting them out in common materials and putting them together. He should take a lesson or two from a saddler, and several, when on board ship, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... classes, whose condition could hardly be more effectually improved than by acquiring such useful knowledge. I have known young American school girls, duly instructed in the nature of the parallaxes of the stars, but, as a rule, they do not know how to darn their stockings. Les Dames du Sacre Coeur do better for their high-born ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... you mustn't ask her to darn your stockings, and wash your handkerchiefs, and do your tasks about the house. It would be disgraceful. And be careful not to hint for things you want, for, of course, Aunt Grace will trot off and buy them for you and papa will not ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... me any cow-man is ever fool enough to sell his saddle," commented Stratton as he took it down. "They never get much for 'em, and new ones are so darn ornery ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... "It's so darn complete!" I gasped, answering the girl's horrified look of inquiry. "Miss Emory, allow me to present Mr. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... it perfectly clean, stiffen it by dipping it into a little gum-water, and pin it out on a pillow, in the proper form, to dry. Then darn it with embroidery cotton, every square of the ...
— The Ladies' Work-Book - Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. • Unknown
... up short by a dim realization of the incongruity of the whole business, "Darn it! Can't use 'em as I ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... table, but sat watching the clouds that foamed up behind the maples on the crest of the nearby hill. A glory of sunshine bathed the earth, and she could see the coral of the apple buds sway against the sky. It was no day to sit within doors and darn socks. All Nature beckoned, and to Lucy, used from birth to being in the open, ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... yur old acquaintance—then thur wur four deer, a buck an' three does. Then kim a catamount; an' arter him a black bar, a'most as big as a buffalo. Then thur wur a 'coon an' a 'possum, an' a kupple o' grey wolves, an' a swamp rabbit, an', darn the thing! a stinkin' skunk. Perhaps the last wan't the most dangerous varmint on the groun', but it sartintly wur the most disagreeableest o' the hul lot, for it smelt only as a cussed polecat ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... well again, Barty would spend much of his play-time fetching and carrying for Mlle. Marceline—even getting Dumollard's socks for her to darn—and talking to her by the hour as he sat by her pleasant window, out of which one could see the Arch of Triumph, which so triumphantly dominated Paris and its suburbs, and does so still—no Eiffel Tower ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... they come. Not a word, old boy. We'll talk it over tonight. It's my notion we'd better move on tomorrow while we've got the wherewithal. I'm not mean enough to borrow money from Whistler and I haven't the face to ask Uncle George to help us out. Darn him, I think he's the one who put it into father's head to ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... auld man, an' darn your hose, Fill up your lanky sides wi' brose, An' at the ingle warm your nose; But come na courtin' me, carle. Oh, ye tottering auld carle, Silly, clavering auld carle, The hawk an' doo shall pair, I trew, Before I pair wi' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... good to me," he said, "and I dare say you have thought me ungrateful. You mended my coat for me one morning, and not a day has passed but that I have looked at that darn and thought of you. I liked to remember that you had done it for me. But you have done far more than this for me: you have put some sweetness into my life. Whatever becomes of me hereafter, I shall never be able to think of my life on earth as ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... to himself as he slapped his way out of the marsh. "But why the bell? Darn mysterious, that bell. . ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... that says a civil word to me now of having designs on my pocketbook. Why, Mr. Smith, you wouldn't believe it, if I told you, the things that's been done and said to get a little money out of me. Of course, the open gold-brick schemes I knew enough to dodge, 'most of 'em (unless you count in that darn Benson mining stock), and I spotted the blackmailers all right, most generally. But I WAS flabbergasted when a WOMAN tackled the job and began to make love to me—actually make love to me!—one day when Jane's back was turned. Gorry! DO I look such ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... said Frank, laying his hand gently on the widow's shoulder, "you shan't darn any more socks if I can help it, for I'm a man of ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... This is just another chapter uh that same story. When these here Klondike Chinooks gets to lapping over each other they never know when to quit. Every darn one has got to be continued tacked onto the tail of it the winter. All the difference is, you can't read the writing; but ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... "Hyah! You gol-darn witless wight," bawled Bud Norris, and slapped Bill Hayden on the back and roared. "Hee-yah! Skyrider! When yo' all git done kissin' Venus's snow-white hand, come and listen at what's been wrote for yo' ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... comes home from its next voyage. It's gone a long way this time,' says she, 'and between you and me, I expect the storms will swamp it, but I've taken the best pieces out of my old dress and Esmeralda's, and, barring the darn on the back seam, I defy ye to tell it from new!' So that's all I've got, as I told you before, and, party or no party, it will ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... astounded by the amount of squaw bread and "darn goods" that the young men of my party made away with, and began to fear not only for the flour supply, but also for the health of the men. One day when I saw one of my party eat three thick loaves of squaw bread in ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... he? I had but a breath of time to wonder at that, as I shoved a way through. Darn him, like a graven image there, the only mute, immovable thing in that turmoil! ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... concerning the boy who was to be my helper. I took the deepest interest in all his plans in regard to me and listened attentively when he bargained with his father for a fourth of a cent's worth of yarn and the use of a needle with which to darn his father's socks. I thought that a boy of sixteen who was willing to increase me by undertaking to darn his father's stockings, deserved all the aid that I could give him. I looked on with interest ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 3, March 1888 • Various
... see, I might cry before evening!" retorted Sylvia pertly, and had the satisfaction of feeling that she had been rude to her elders, and put herself hopelessly in the wrong, as Miss Munns took up her stocking-bag and began to darn, drooping her eyelids with ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... or can't pay for nice quarters, they treat him any old way. Yes, they're good doctors and all that. But they're like everybody else. They don't give a darn for poor people. But your uncle'll be all ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... 'cumulatin' 'em to darn 'em," explained Jimpson, glad to shift responsibility. "She 'low she gwine to tak a day off some o' dese days, an' mend up ever'thing in ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... little finger rips away from the next one, and they all burst out at the ends; a stitch drops in the back and slides down to the wrist before you know it has started. You can mend, to be sure, but for every darn yawn twenty holes. I admire a dainty glove as much any one. I look with enthusiasm not unmingled with despair at these gloves of romance; but such things do not depend entirely upon taste, as male writers ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... a time when you and I are asleep, and when the coster-barrows, waving with ferns and fuchsias, move up the Strand like Birnam Wood moving to Dunsinane. On those days she was due home at half-past four or so. On other days she was able to have a late breakfast and to darn her stockings after it, but that meant that she did not get home till very late. Some 'buses, I gather, are called "single 'buses," but in this case the word does not imply celibacy alone. The single 'bus is occupied by one conductor all ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... just now the prisoner looked queer. Ever since the preacher has left him, he don't look as he used to do—but," gazing intently over the shoulder of his officer, "it must be him, too! There is the same powdered head, and the darn in the coat, where he was hit the day we had the last brush ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... locks, she no longer attempts hair-dressing; while she never accomplishes the lacing of an evening dress without putting her knee in the centre of your back once, at least, during the operation. She can button shoes, and she can mend and patch and darn to perfection; she has a frenzy for small laundry operations, and, after washing the windows of her room, she adorns every pane of glass with a fine cambric handkerchief, and, stretching a line between the bedpost and the bureau knob, she hangs out her white neckties ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... mail at last, and dreadful bright and smart to look at too,' cried an elderly gentleman in some excitement, 'darn ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... quite sure, he told himself. The commercial came darn near being in poor taste, what with the crisis so near, and yet ... it wasn't something to make you forget the product. By Geoffery, no! You'd think of Witch products quite a bit, after ...
— Prologue to an Analogue • Leigh Richmond
... that might have been accidental, but it looked neglected—was not merely dingy, but plainly shabby, and, to Mary's country eyes, appeared on the wrong side of clean. Presently, as those eyes got accustomed to the miserable light, they spied in the skirt of her gown a perfunctory darn, revealing but too evidently that to Letty there no longer seemed occasion for being particular. The sadness of it all sunk to Mary's heart: Letty had not ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... changed!" he said to himself as he walked back to the house. "He fairly radiates enthusiasm and wholesomeness. Well, I'm sorry for him. I wish Sylvia would leave now instead of in the spring, in spite of her promises and scruples and what-not. And I wish, darn it all, that she were as easy ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... call you two lucky fellows; but come to gettin' about, give me water. This rumblin' and joltin' about over clay ro'ds, and climbin' in and out over a great wheel, and like as not hossy startin' up just as you've got your leg over and throwin' of you into the ro'd—what I say is, darn it all! And think you might be slippin' along in a schooner, and the water lip-lappin', and the shore slidin' by smooth and pleasant, and no need to say 'gerlong up!' nor slap the reins nor feed her ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... little thing. How you suffer!" Hilton grinned back. "You know darn well you've got a lot of stuff that none of the rest ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... thought as 'ow I'd make bold to coom an' tell ye my red cow's took the turn an' doin' wonderful! Seems a special mussy of th' A'mighty, an' if there's anythin' me an' my darter can do fur ye, ye'll let us know, Passon, for I'm darn grateful, an' feels as 'ow the beast pulled round arter I'd spoke t'ye about 'er. An' though as ye told me, 'tain't the thing to say no prayers for beasties which is worldly goods, I makes a venture to arsk ye if ye'll step round to the farm ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... to mend for a dozen men and three boys," said she, "and the boys are the worst by a heap sight. Look at that, will you," holding up a darn with a bit of stocking attached. "That hole was made ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... purple mountain, with cherry trees down below, and——" He put his clenched hand to his lips. His head was bowed. "And the ocean! Lord! The ocean! And we'll see it at Seattle. Bay, anyway. And steamers there—just come from India! Huh! Getting pretty darn poetic ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... every room. It excited Mrs. Barker's honest admiration. Here it was a curtain; there it was a set of toilet furniture; in another place a fresh chintz cover; in a fourth, a rug that matched the carpet and hid an ugly darn in it. Esther made all these things and did all these things herself; they cost her father nothing, or next to nothing, and they did not even ask for Mrs. Barker's time, and they were little things, but the effect of them was not so. They gave the house that finished, comfortable, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... of level-headed women who have done with romance, and who are perfectly willing to take up the position of wife to a man who honestly states that he requires a companion to {120} help his digestion by conversing at meals, to manage his house, entertain his guests, and darn his socks. When such a couple meet together let them show mutual respect for each other's motives, and invest the arrangement with comfort and dignity in ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... gray plaid mackinaw coat, and a red toboggan cap. His dog, Count Del Monte, ate the red cap, so his uncle gave him a gray one that pulled down over his face. The trouble with this one was that you breathed into it and your breath froze; one day the darn thing froze his cheek. He rubbed snow on his cheek, but it turned ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... pairs of socks. We work pretty hard. We don't know how to darn socks. When the heels wear through, come blisters. Bad blisters disable a man. Of the million of surplus women (see above) the government has not had the intelligence to get any to darn our socks. So a certain percentage of us go lame. And so on. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... make your money, because I tell you frankly that's the only way you can hold this girl. She's full of heroics now, self-sacrifice, and all the things that go to make up the third act of a play, but the minute she comes to darn her stockings, wash out her own handkerchiefs and dry them on the window, and send out for a pail of coffee and a sandwich for lunch, take it from me it will go Blah! [Rises, crosses to front of table with chair, ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... if he, Joe Rainey, shot at him first, he'd be testifyin' for hisself, and not against hisself. He darn't testify," says Mitch. "It's a lie. Joe Rainey didn't shoot at him. I can just see right ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... with gilt buttons, his neat little ties, and clean hands; his carefully brushed curls, by this time trained into better order, and shining like burnished gold in the sun; his tiny feet, with the favorite red socks, which he could and did darn very neatly himself when they began to wear out (and when he bought new ones they were always bright red),—Joe, let me tell you, was quite an ornament in our establishment, and the envy of several boys living in families round about, ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... desperation, at robbery of its very thimble, fills the gentle heart. Old Nuns shriek shrill discord; demand to be killed forthwith. No help from shrieking! Better was that of the two shifty male Citizens, who, eager to preserve an implement or two, were it but a pipe-picker, or needle to darn hose with, determined to defend themselves: by tobacco. Swift then, as your fell Red Caps are heard in the Corridor rummaging and slamming, the two Citoyens light their pipes and begin smoking. Thick darkness envelops them. The Red Nightcaps, opening the cell, breathe but one mouthful; ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... sure been worth it," he observed reflectively. "Yep. Sure it has." He sighed in a satisfied way. Then his smile deepened, and the light in his eyes glowed with something like enthusiasm. "Think of it. You can trade right here just how you darn please. You can make your own laws, and abide by 'em or break 'em just as you get the notion. Think of it, we're five hundred miles, five hundred miles of fierce weather, and the devil's own country, from the coast. We're three hundred miles from the nearest law of ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... Skinny retorted, "an' I figure it's nobody's darn' business how I ride him—anyhow I brought Old Heck a telegram!" he ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... people, sir,' said one of the captains, who was from the West, 'and have no time for reading mere notions. We don't mind 'em if they come to us in newspapers along with almighty strong stuff of another sort, but darn your books.' ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... his age, he thought. A mite spare in the ribs maybe, and that possibly due to rapid growth. But the face strong and pleasing and the eyes like Uncle Isaac's. When all was said, a darn good sample. ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... your things yourself, you are big enough. You can talk for yourself and me too," cried Ursula with sudden impetuosity; and then she sat and worked, her needle flying through the meshes of her darning, though it is hard to darn stockings in that impassioned way. They were socks of Johnnie's, however, with holes in the heels that you could put your fist through, and the way in which the big spans filled themselves up under this influence was wonderful ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... a thread at the end of a darn, and a new hole displayed its ravage over the yellow surface of ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... "That's darn fine work. See how those mosaics and tiles are set in. That's Italian work; we don't finish stuff as well as that in this country. Yes, sir; some rich gazaboo has spent a barrel of money bringing Dago workmen down here to make him a little swimming ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... to him one day, "I am breaking down. I have brought some plants to set in your garden. I wish you would give me something to do for you. Your shirts to make, your stockings to darn. If I were a poor woman I should work down my ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... compass. Read a chart. State direction by the stars and sun. Swim fifty yards with trousers, socks, and shirt on. Climb a rope or pole of fifteen feet, or, as alternative, dance the hornpipe correctly. Sew and darn a shirt and trousers. Understand the general working of steam and hydraulic winches, and have a knowledge of weather wisdom ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... out the stockings, Suzanna, and darn them. I'll call you when I need your help for supper. Keep your eye ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... darn near half the way," replied Ladd. "We tried to make him ride one of our hosses. If we had, we'd never got here. A walk like ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... says it won't do! She says that the children have got to be taken care of but that it isn't fair to put the curse of marriage on parents. And she says her way isn't the answer, either, but that anyhow it's honest, which is a darn sight more than a lot of ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... don't care a darn what any of you may say, I believe these blinkin' English are sick of us and are sending ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... rockers, Mr. Lawson? I declare that one favors my old man ez it sets there, even without him in it. Nine dollars? That's a good deal for a pants'-tearin' chair, seems to me, which them willers are, the last one of 'em, an' I'm a mighty poor hand to darn. Jest let me lay my stitches in colors, in the shape of a flower, an' I can darn ez well ez the next one, but I do despise to fill up holes jest to be a-fillin'. Yes, ez you say, them silver-mounted brier-wood pipes is mighty purty, but he smokes so much ez it is, I don't ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... are in office or out, and there's a lot that a man owes to the folks that have stood by him. I tell you I know politics from the bottom up, and there ain't no room in 'em for the man—I don't give a darn who he is—that don't stand by his friends. If he's the President of the United States, he'll find that he can't afford not to stand by the people ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... then, you darn fool," answered the sheriff. "We'll cut on round the valley, for all that. It's a gamble he'll be at Gold Mountain before you're half way across. But if you catch him, here"—he tossed Marcus a pair of handcuffs—"put 'em on him and bring ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... to her her dearest friends. Every day she went across to the house intent upon doing good offices; and this was the repentance in sackcloth and ashes which she exacted from herself. Could not he do as she did? He could not darn Minnie's and Brenda's stockings, but he might do something to make those children more worthy of their cousin's care. He could not associate with his brother-in-law, because he was sure that Mr. Carroll would not endure his society; but ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... as Jim smiled at him. "Darn it, Mr. Manning," he said, "why haven't you looked at me that way before?" Then he laughed ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... could answer that question, Zenas Henry, I wouldn't be standin' here gapin' at the darn thing," was his laconic response. "It's just took a spell, that's all there is to it. It was right ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... after giving his order to a boy waiter he turned to his companion across the table and continued. "And it took a darn long ride to ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... combustion. She wouldn't care if I did blow up and turn to ashes. She wouldn't care what happened to me so long as she could send out a new poster for peach marmalade. She wants to live her own life and not be tied down to a man or a home," he groaned. "Darn these feministic ideas, anyway! I wish I had been my own grandfather. The girl he wanted wasn't on any ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... and the hands that should have been busy were neglected; and thus it was that, at the age of sixteen, Kate Evans could not sweep a room decently, nor darn a stocking, nor mend her own clothes, nor make nor bake a loaf of bread creditably. But then, was she not the very rejoicing of her master and mistress's hearts, and the head girl of the school? And did not the government inspector always give her a specially pleasant ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... enough for the average man. If she can cook his meals decently and keep his buttons sewed on and doesn't nag him he will think that life is a pretty comfortable affair. And that reminds me, I saw holes in your black lace stockings yesterday. Better go and darn them at once. 'Procrastination is the thief ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "That darn little Carlie Chitten!" he complained. "He ast me to hold a little tin box he showed me. He told me to hold it between my thumb and fingers and he'd show me sumpthing. Then he pushed the lid, and a big needle came out ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... let him alone, if you please, or I'll make you go sit in de entry till your mother's ready to go. I don't see what she has you brats tugging after her for whenever she comes here—she might jest as well leave yer at home to darn your ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... do all possible in return. There are many tales told of homely service rendered him, even by the hard-working farmers' wives around New Salem. There was not one of them who did not gladly "put on a plate" for Abe Lincoln when he appeared, or would not darn or mend for him when she knew he needed it. Hannah Armstrong, the wife of the hero of Clary's Grove, made him one of her family. "Abe would come out to our house," she said, "drink milk, eat mush, cornbread and butter, bring the children candy, and rock the cradle while I got him something ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... darn lucky you had a movie machine along," the fireman said. "You youngsters have ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... that slut of a woman was too fond of for its chances of gossip to send her niece in her stead. On Thursdays Loveday was wont to stay in and see to the mending, but she reflected that, by sitting up in her bed at night to darn and patch by the light of the wick that floated in a cup of fish-oil, she might take charge of some neighbour's children on that day instead and Aunt Senath be none the wiser. Loveday had a sad lack of principle, doubtless an heritage ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... and I'd get sick of it," he formulated his new philosophy. "Now I got something to come back to, somebody to look forward to. And it's a WOMAN; it ain't one of these darn gangle-leg cowgirls. The great thing is to feel you BELONG to someone; and that someone nice and cool and fresh and purty is waitin' for you when you come in tired. It beats that other little old idee of mine slick as ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... had been carefully appraising the openings in the crowd. "And don't hurry! Remember, you're a god to them—or something a darn sight worse." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... the posture is wearisome, and Fashion is an awful martinet and has a quick eye, and comes down mercilessly on the unfortunate wight who cannot square his toes to the approved pattern, or who appears upon parade with a darn in his coat or with a shoulder belt insufficiently pipe-clayed. It is killing work. Suppose we try 'standing at ease' ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... "And possibly bah! Do you suppose that the sort of man who runs Broster Street is likely to care a darn about publicity? What does it matter to him if the papers soak it to him for about two days? He knows they'll drop him and go on to something else on the third, and he knows he's broken no law. No, there's something more in this business than that. Don't think that ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the lantern to the left sent a luminous bar of light along the breast of the darn, and revealed a jagged break, fully six feet wide, through which the freed water poured with the speed of a millrace. The chasm was barely a dozen feet from where the Pioneer had lodged, and Ned's first thought was one of gratitude for his own escape. Then he remembered with a thrill ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... "I'll darn that; it's as good as new except for one thin patch. These shirts have lasted very well, haven't they? The colour's hardly faded at all. You ought to have had new vests, but I daresay you'll have ample opportunity ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... the last thing by one of the maids. Then she lifted the bright copper kettle out of the fender and placed it on the hob, where it began to sing a song of its own composition, and she ended by taking up three pairs of her son's stockings to darn. ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... expect him to return until midday, and she sat herself down on a log before the fire to darn a pair of socks as well as she could. For a time this unusual occupation held her attention and then her hands became slow and at last inactive, and she fell into reverie. Thoughts came quick and fast of her children ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... We cannot flaunt it in new feathers now: Nay, if we will buy diamond necklaces To please our lady, we must darn, my lord. This old thing here (points to necklace round her neck), they are but blue beads—my Piero, God rest his honest soul, he bought 'em for me, Ay, but he knew I meant to marry him. How couldst thou do it, my son? How couldst thou ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... "I like to darn, and I see some to be done in this basket. May I do it?" and Christie laid hold of the weekly job which even the best housewives are apt to set aside ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... caught fire. It was extinguished by a bold Churchwarden. In future let Churchwardens be prepared with hose whenever a prelate runs any chance of ignition from his own "burning eloquence." If Mr. Punch's advice as above is acted upon, a Bishop if "put out" may probably mutter, "Darn your hose." But this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... can easily settle one thing about him, at any rate. Here comes Claire. Claire, old girl,' she said, as the door opened, 'do you know a man named—Darn it! I never got ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... of you; that is, in your present position of general manager. You can have one or two of the subsidiary companies but not the whole darn thing, and—" ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... man—"Breadfruit Bligh," as they called him. They made an Admiral of him in the end, but they never cured his cussedness: and my grandfather, that followed his history (and good reason for why) from the day he first set foot in this parish, used to rub his hands over every fresh item of news. "Darn it!" he'd say, "here's that old Turk broke loose again. Lord, if he ain't a warrior!" Seemed as if he took a delight in the man, and kept a sort of tenderness for him till ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... often heard it. Hal rarely, if ever, said anything else, and if I did sometimes darn his stockings a little too thick, it was not such a heinous crime. He was handsome, and I was as proud of his face as I was ashamed of my own; I know now that my features were not so bad, but my spirit never shone through them, while Hal carried every thought right in his ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... know Barry," Johnny told her. "Bright boy—Barry. Awful high-brow, though. Wrote a play or something. Not a darn bed in it. Oh, well," said Johnny hastily, with a glance at the girl's young face, "I say, how does this go? Ta tump ti tum ti tump tump—what do those ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... carkus," cried the horse-keeper, gathering himself up, "carn't you git oof ar cooarch aroat knocking o' pipple darn?" ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... roundly At any astounding yarn, By darning their dear eyes roundly ('T was all they had to darn). They "hoisted their slacks," adjusting Garments of plantain-leaves With nautical twitches (as if they wore breeches, Instead of a dress ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... Darn their hides! If iver I get me hands on a bohunk in this wor-rld again—" He spat noisily. "And all for a gun I don't know how to use. But it'll make a n'ise. Maybe it'll do to disthract their attintion till I ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... boots or goloshes, their father had been hauled up before the magistrate, the warrant officer had come and made an inventory of the furniture. . . . What a disgrace! Anna had had to look after her drunken father, darn her brothers' stockings, go to market, and when she was complimented on her youth, her beauty, and her elegant manners, it seemed to her that every one was looking at her cheap hat and the holes in her ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... to be met at a party, the men would dare to enter it reeking with whiskey, their lips blackened with tobacco, and convinced, to the very centre of their hearts and souls, that women were made for no other purpose than to fabricate sweetmeats and gingerbread, construct shirts, darn stockings, and become mothers of possible presidents? Assuredly not. Should the women of America ever discover what their power might be, and compare it with what it is, much improvement might be hoped for. While, at ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope |
