"Half-holiday" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... undisguised pain which the discovery caused him was swallowed up in unbounded indignation. "False-hearted, dishonorable boys," he exclaimed, "henceforth my treatment of you shall be very different. The whole form, except Russell and Owen, shall have an extra lesson every half-holiday; not one of the rest of you will I trust again. I took you for gentlemen. I was mistaken. Go." And so saying, he waved them to their seats ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... stores find that they can better afford to give all their employees vacations with pay. A clerk coming home after a vacation can sell goods, even in dull times. More and more employers are coming to appreciate the money value of the Saturday half-holiday in summer. Hearn, in New York, closes his department store all day Saturday during July and August. The store sells more goods in five days than it ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... gossip, mother. We went up to the gardens to get some mulberries for our half-holiday feast; and Ronaldson came out and told us we must ask leave first, for the ladies were come. The Squire came home at nine o'clock last night, and Mrs. Egremont and all, and only sent a telegram two hours before to have the ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I had a half-holiday to myself, for Miss Susan Bagshot seemed to take a delight in finding me something to do on these occasions; but whenever I had, I spent it with Milly Darrell, and on these rare afternoons I was perfectly happy. I had grown to love her as I did not ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... comes only once in twelve weeks. The cooks of the one week drive up the cows and water the horses the next week, and then there is no extra work, that is, nothing but the regular daily work from 9.30 A.M. after school to 1 P.M. Wednesday is a half-holiday, Saturday a whole holiday. There are six milkers, one of whom is responsible for the whole. One receives 2s. 0d. per week, his chief mate 1s. 6d., and the other four 1s. each. They take it in turns, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gangs under the hectorings of an overseer. Now—and it has seemed to come all in a moment—the humblest of them earn their 36s. 6d.; the head men their 40s.; their hours are down to fifty for the week, with a half-holiday on Saturday; delegates of their kind sit at a board in Trowbridge face to face and of equal worth with delegates of their employers. All matters affecting their status, housing, terms of employment can be brought before the ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... Only one half-holiday was vouchsafed to them at Miss Goldthwaite's earnest entreaty, and they took tea at the parsonage, after which the party went up to the Red House pond to see the skating there. They were very warmly welcomed—Minnie, especially, being quite ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... of the Liberty Loan drive was declared a half-holiday. The guards were doubled at the gates, and watchmen moved among the crowds; but strangers were admitted if they looked plausible, and several motor-loads of them rolled in. Some of them carried bundles of circulars and posters and application blanks. Some of them were ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... intimate friends; and he had only a few whom he admitted to his inner circle. To others beyond he was not known and was not generally popular. Gladstone, Charles Canning, Handley, Bruce, Hodgson, Lord Bruce and Milnes-Gaskell set up a Salt Hill Club. They met every whole holiday or half-holiday, as was convenient, after twelve, "and went up to Salt Hill to bully the fat waiter, eat toasted cheese, and drink egg-wine." It is startling to hear from such an authority as James Milnes-Gaskell that "in all our meetings, as well as at almost every time, Gladstone ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... little jobs; the foraging parties dragnetting the country round for sheep, poultry, eggs, milk, and the like,—and this not to the owner's loss be it remembered; the morning wash in the Susquehanna; the evening swim; the drills and dress parades; the half-holiday in Harrisburg, whose baths and restaurants and shops, whose fair ladies, (where there were cherry-trees in the garden!), whose verandahs with easy chair and a Havana and quiet, made the place to us a soldiers' paradise; and this notwithstanding the mean spirit of the people made us despise them. ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... the new, trim little houses and the clumsy, big, old-fashioned ones, chattering incessantly. Their bright, interested eyes did not miss the tiniest detail. The village, sleepier than ever on the morning of the half-holiday, was full ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... days ago we had a very narrow escape from fire; indeed, it seemed for some time as if the whole of the Mission would be wiped out. It was a half-holiday and our boys had gone fishing to the Devil's Pond, a favourite spot of theirs, about a mile away. Unfortunately Noah was seized with the idea of lighting a fire by which to cook the trout, the matches having been stolen from my room. It had been dry for several days, there ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... was Saturday, a half-holiday in many business quarters, and besides it was a balmy, radiant day, with the trees and grass shining exceedingly green after the rain of the night before. When she went out the sparrows were twittering merrily in joyous choruses. She could not help feeling, as she looked across the lovely ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... one of our truest poets, was born in Moorfields, London, in the year 1795. He was educated at a private school at Enfield. His desire for the pleasures of the intellect and the imagination showed itself very early at school; and he spent many a half-holiday in writing translations from the Roman and the French poets. On leaving school, he was apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton— the scene of one of John Gilpin's adventures; but, in 1817, he gave up the practice of surgery, devoted himself entirely to poetry, and brought ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... "I must set you some punishment. I shall give the butler instructions to hand you a note from me at three o'clock to-morrow." (The next day was a half-holiday.) "In that note you will find indicated what I wish you to ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... swiftly by and the month of May was gone. Summer was early that year, and the first day of June dawned sultry and still over the sweltering city. It was a half-holiday at the Chestnut School, so Peace returned home at noon, hot, perspiring, but radiant at the thought of no more lessons till the morrow. She came a round-about way in order to pass the great gates of the ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... I am pleas'd to take a good angel for ten shillings, speciously of such a debtor as Master Fraud; but now I am to be pleas'd otherwise, that is, to see him punished. I promise ye the people love him well, for they would leave work and make half-holiday to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... a half-holiday, and some of them went over to the lake to fish, Sam and Tom accompanying ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... Their aunt, Mrs. Trafford, lived within a mile of Brackenfield, and had arranged with Mrs. Morrison that the two girls should spend every alternate Wednesday afternoon at her house. Wednesday was the most general day for exeats; it was the leisurely half-holiday of the week, when the girls might carry out their own little plans, Saturday afternoons being reserved for hockey practice and matches, at which all were expected to attend. The rules were strict at Brackenfield, and enacted that the girls must be escorted ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... who have become more or less prominent in the public eye—and there are some who have—have demonstrated their ability to see things as they are. Westinghouse was the first man in this country to foresee the coming of the half-holiday Saturday as an innovation that promised general adoption. He granted it to all his employees at a time when lesser industrial captains believed him to be at least "queer." Ford set the pace for a minimum rate of five dollars a day in his plant, and lesser ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... education which we have brought. But there is a distinctly new type of Indian schoolboy appearing, amongst the thousands of lads who are getting their education in Poona City. Some of them not unfrequently find their way to the village Mission-house on half-holiday afternoons, and ask to see the church, or beg for a picture post-card. They talk a little English, dropping back into the vernacular with some relief when unable to say exactly what they want in the foreign tongue. They rather incline to English dress; in some cases ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... stationed at field headquarters of the Front Sector of the Vologda Force, which was at Verst 455, will recollect with great pleasure the Thanksgiving Day half-holiday and program arranged by Major Nichols, commanding the American forces. He gave us Miss Ogden, the Y. W. C. A. woman from d. o. U. S. A. to read President Wilson's proclamation. How strange it seemed to us soldiers standing there under arms. And Major Moodie ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... his apprentice a half-holiday, and was standing outside his house, speaking to some customers, when he suddenly heard a great noise, and turning round he saw that good St. James in the box was running towards the cathedral from which ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... tell you how I first discovered that in the floor of my bedroom, in the recess of the huge Elizabethan bay window, was a trap-door concealed by a thin veneering of oak; suffice it say that with a companion I devoted a delightful half-holiday to stripping off the veneering and breaking the lock of the trap-door. Between my floor and the ceiling of the long gallery below, was contrived a small room about five feet in height and the size and shape of ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... of palaces, and rudely stamped on the handkerchief of the peasant. It is the favorite game of children in the street. Loyal Spain was thrilled with joy recently on reading in its Paris correspondence that when the exiled Prince of Asturias went for a half-holiday to visit his imperial comrade at the Tuileries, the urchins had a game of "toro" on the terrace, admirably conducted by the little Bourbon and followed up with great spirit ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... could not well contradict it, and Alick triumphantly went on, 'You see, Theo, this is how it all began. We asked Price, civilly enough, this morning to allow us a whole day off on Wednesday next, instead of the usual half-holiday. And I'll tell you why we were so anxious for a whole day. You ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... occasions; but despite his strong personal inclination and effort, this was by no means the case. The little lady was singularly impartial in the distribution of her time, and only by being first applicant had he secured to himself the one long afternoon that had yet been vouchsafed them,—the cadet half-holiday of Saturday. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... a half-holiday at Crichton House, and so, soon after dinner, Paul found himself marshalled with the rest in a procession bound for the football field. They marched two and two, Chawner and three of the other elder boys leading with the ball and four goal-posts ornamented ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... summer Saturday, the half-holiday that is the reward of a week's hard labor. With the wise precaution which is a prominent characteristic of my bosom friend, a small body of comrades was gathered together on the end of Meigg's Wharf, simultaneously scanning, with vigilant ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... judge may be left alone for the present. The wisest line for me to take in this case is to allow the paraffin oil to soak in. I hardly think it will be necessary for me to see him again. He'll probably leave by the mid-day train. The fact is, I'm thinking of taking a half-holiday." ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... places since where the same sense has come strongly upon me. One was a glade in Windsor Forest, just to be reached by a rapid walk from Eton on a half-holiday afternoon; it was a wide grassy place, with a few old oaks in it, gnarled and withered; and over the tree-tops was a glimpse of distant blue swelling hills. Even now the same sensation comes back to me, more rarely but not less ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... morning, after I have read my letters, and when I know what my day's work is to be. Would you like to see me set it now? What is to-day? Wednesday. Good! This is the day of our rifle-club; there is little business to do; I grant a half-holiday. No work here to- day, after three o'clock. Let us first put away this portfolio of municipal papers. There! No need to trouble Tick-Tick to open the door until eight to-morrow. Good! I leave the dial-hand ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... buggy, the deacon chirruped to Dobbin, and they rode away. At the same moment came a shrill whistle from the street, and Monty ran to the gate. Bob Turner and a lot of boys were waiting near, rods over their shoulders and fish-hooks in their pockets, intent upon a Saturday half-holiday at their favorite sport. Besides their tackle they had great sacks of burlap, or canvas, because when they had caught all the fish in the river they expected to gather all the chestnuts in the woods. In any ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... Aubrey woke that Saturday morning, about the time Titania began to dust the pavement-boxes, in no very world-conquering humour. As it was a half-holiday, he felt no compunction in staying away from the office. The landlady, a motherly soul, sent him up some coffee and scrambled eggs, and insisted on having a doctor in to look at his damage. Several stitches were taken, ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... any, I walked home, and ministered to my poor little bruised body as I best could. Now this being a Saturday, and therefore a half-holiday, I ate at two with my father ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... you may do, and indeed can alone guide you to what ought to be done. I had a rather painful illustration of this the other day. A gentleman of wealth and position offered me the use of his grounds for some of my poor friends, whom I wanted to take out for a half-holiday. In the neighborhood of London, that is a great boon. But unfortunately, whether from his mistake or mine, I was left with the impression that he would provide some little entertainment for them; I am certain that at least milk was mentioned. It was a lovely day; every thing ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... to-night. To-morrow is Saturday, half-holiday. We'll take them down to the lake and come home by moonlight. Oh, Herbert, won't ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... early adventures, a comfortable yet simple home, and an atmosphere of piety, learning, and good fellowship. What more is wanted, or can be desired? The "Boatswains" and "Cabin-boys" of Bishop Parker's fancy were in the neighbourhood, no doubt, and as stray companions for a half-holiday must have had their attractions; but it is unnecessary to attribute Andrew Marvell's style in controversy to his early acquaintance with a sea-faring population, for he is far more likely to have picked it up from his great friend and colleague, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... countenance changed; he walked back to Lyvern, and thence to the chalet, like a man pursued by disgust and remorse. Later in the afternoon, to raise his spirits, he took his skates and went to Wickens's pond, where, it being Saturday, he found the ice crowded with the Alton students and their half-holiday visitors. Fairholme, describing circles with his habitual air of compressed hardihood, stopped and stared with indignant surprise as ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Landlord!" I have never dared to read the "Pirate," and the "Bride of Lammermoor," or "Kenilworth," from that day to this, because the finale is unhappy, and people die, and are murdered at the end. But "Ivanhoe," and "Quentin Durward"! Oh! for a half-holiday, and a quiet corner, and one of those books again! Those books, and perhaps those eyes with which we read them; and, it may be, the brains behind the eyes! It may be the tart was good; but how fresh the appetite was! If the gods ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... was aggravated by many of the officers being "rusty" themselves and not having books of reference handy. However, the difficulty was got over by forming a class of instruction in each company, and the desired result was obtained in a few days. Five hours daily were given to parades and a half-holiday observed on ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... Here I go and get a half-holiday off from the bank, and just at the busiest time, too, to come and see you, and I find you in a brown study, looking as blue as indigo, and maybe you're all yellow inside from a bilious ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... 24.—Half-holiday. Play and learning it. Walked with Hallam, read papers. Hallam drank wine with me after dinner. Finished 8th vol. of Gibbon; read account of Palmyra in second volume; did more verses on it. Much jaw about nothing at ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... a Wednesday half-holiday late in March, a spring day glorious in amber light, dazzling white clouds and the intensest blue, casting a powder of wonderful green hither and thither among the trees and rousing all the birds to tumultuous rejoicings, a rousing day, a clamatory insistent day, a veritable ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... then of an evening, and she liked to hear what they were doing at school. Polly, too, made visits; they had a half-holiday on Saturday. She always brought some work, and Elizabeth considered her a very industrious girl. She was going to a birthday party ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... spend a day with my little girls—that is, when you can obtain leave," he said.—"Ah, Mrs. Merriman! it will be very unlike you to be over strict with your young people. They must all come to the Rectory. When is your next half-holiday?" ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... I am more idle, or more stupid, than ever to-day. I can't get on with the bust at all to my satisfaction, so I have cut short the sitting, and given Nanina a half-holiday." ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... and the new year came in, cold and bleak, but Tony was well secured against the weather, and liked the frosty air, which made it pleasant to run as fast as he could from place to place as he delivered his parcels. When boxing day came, which was half-holiday for him, he returned to the house at mid-day, carrying with him three mince-pies, which he had felt himself rich enough to buy in honour of the holiday. He had for a long time been reckoning upon shutting up shop for the whole afternoon, and upon going out for a long stroll through ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... tell anyone you did so. You may rely on that." Mr. Pellew gave his cigar a half-holiday to say this seriously, and Miss Dickenson felt that his type, though too tailor-made, was always to be relied on; you had only to scratch it to find a Gentleman underneath. No audience ever fails to applaud the discovery on the stage. Evidently there was no reserve needed—a relation of the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the winter; but it's all the place I've got, and I'm supposed to stay in it—when I ain't workin'. But I've come out to-day. I ain't goin' to stay in that room, and I ain't goin' to go to any old library to read, neither. It's our last half-holiday this year—and an extra one, at that; and I'm going to have a good time—for once. I'm just as young, and I like to laugh and joke just as well as them girls I sell bows to all day. Well, to-day I'm going to ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... a half-holiday when Mr. Lamb came, partly because he would force his way into the schoolroom and make seriousness impossible. His head would suddenly appear at the door in the midst of lessons, with "Well, Betsy! How do, Jane?" "O, Mr. Lamb!" they would say, and that was the end of work for that day. He was ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... well, for their rules were few and sensible, and the boys, knowing that they tried to make things easy and happy, did their best to obey. But there are times when hungry boys cannot be repressed without real cruelty, and Saturday evening, after a half-holiday, was one of ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... seat and lurid odor of gasoline. But sparrows splashed in the pools of sunshine; in a lull the darky's voice came again, chanting passionately, "In de spring, spring, spring!" and Carl clamored: "I've got to get out to-day. Terrible glad it's a half-holiday. Wonder if I ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... titbit flavour; for Saturday, as a rule, wore splashes of gold and yellow upon its latter end, being a half-holiday associated with open air and sunshine, but now, Monday already in sight, with lessons and early bed and other prohibitions by the dozen, hearts sank a little, a shadow crept upon the sun. They had a grievance; some one had cheated them of a final joy. The collapse was unexpected, ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... half-holiday, and next day Sampson was in school again, much as usual. That night the third and last incident in ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... celebrated at Conantum,—a pine-clad hill on the south side of Fairhaven Bay, opposite the cliffs. As soon as winter came committees were chosen to provide dancing or theatricals for every Friday evening; but the climax of pleasure was a half-holiday for a skating carnival on Walden Pond,—where Thoreau was sure to be present, and also a Miss Caroline Moore, daughter of the deputy sheriff, and afterwards widely known in Europe and America as the ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... sinking, many referring to it as murder; there is talk of war by many private citizens of the United States; there is rejoicing in Germany, where towns are hung with flags and children in Southern Germany are given a half-holiday, so reports state; Berlin newspapers acclaim the sinking, while hundreds of telegrams of congratulation are received by Admiral von Tirpitz, Minister of Marine; Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, former German Colonial Secretary, in a statement in Cleveland, argues that ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to reach his body, but fainted on the way. Mars Brown, riding to Holbrook for a half-holiday, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... as the Cotswolds it is inevitable that the game of cricket should be somewhat neglected. Men who work day after day in the open air, and to whom a half-holiday is a very rare experience, naturally seek their recreations in less energetic fashion than the noble game of cricket demands of its votaries. The class who derive most benefit from this game spring as a rule from towns and manufacturing centres and those whose work and interests confine ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... to this, we are favoured with the portrait of a young gentleman upon a half-holiday—and, equipped with cricket means, his dexter-hand grasps his favourite bat, whilst the left arm gracefully encircles a hat, in which is seductively shown a genuine "Duke." The sentiment of this picture is unparalleled, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... at rarer intervals, Sutton Coldfield or Hagley. Well-to-do tradesmen and employers of labour were satisfied with a few hours spent at some of the old-style Tea Gardens, or the Crown and Cushion, at Perry Barr, Aston Cross or Tavern, Kirby's, or the New Inn, at Handsworth, &c. The Saturday half-holiday movement, which came soon after the introduction of the railways, may be reckoned as starting the excursion era proper, and the first Saturday afternoon trip (in 1854) to the Earl of Bradford's, at Castle Bromwich, was an eventful episode even in the life of George Dawson, who ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... it was on a certain afternoon in a very sunny and warm October that Lucy invited little Agnes Frost to take a walk with her. She did this feeling sure that the child would come willingly, for both Irene and Rosamund were spending the half-holiday at The Follies. Miss Frost was busily engaged, and beginning to enjoy her life, and little Agnes was standing in her wistful way by one of the doors of the ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... dim light of the warehouse they talked on, making their task appear as a half-holiday of sport. It seemed to me that this was in keeping with their training; the fashionable attitude of the British soldier toward a horrible business. If this helps him to endure what these men had endured without ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... I retain of my school-days at Boulogne is that of the long half-holiday walks we were allowed to indulge in. Not the two-and-two, dull, dreary, daily procession round the ramparts, but the disbanded freedom of the sunny afternoon, spent in gathering wild-flowers along the pretty, secluded valley of the Liane, through ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... one another's studies. On the last occasion, it had been an old quarry away out on the downs. This had been proved by the not-to-be-shaken testimony of three school-house fags, who had wandered out one half-holiday with the unconcealed intention of finding the League's place of meeting. Unfortunately for them, they had found it. They were going down the path that led to the quarry before-mentioned, when they were unexpectedly seized, blindfolded, and carried off. An impromptu ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... the press and the politicians, boldly set aside the laws against conspiracy and strained to the utmost tension those relating to riot, arson and murder. To such a pass did all this come that in the year 1931 an inn-keeper's denial of a half-holiday to an under-cook resulted in the peremptory closing of half the factories in the country, the stoppage of all railroad travel and movement of freight by land and water and a general paralysis of the industries of the land. Many thousands ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... good seat at Lord's or the Oval, and be Connoisseurs of what Abel and Hearne and Brockwell can and cannot do. If a man wants to sing the praises of cricket as a national game, let him go down to one of the Public Schools and watch its close or cricket-ground on a half-holiday: fifteen acres of turf, and a dozen games going on together, from Big Side down to the lowest form match: from three to four hundred boys in white flannels—all keen as mustard, and each occupied with his own ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which is invaluable to a social or political reformer. School holidays were only a rarity in harvest time for the parish school. At Miss Phin's we had, besides, a week at Christmas. The boys had only New Year's Day. Saturday was only a half-holiday. We all had a holiday for Queen Victoria's coronation, and I went with a number of school fellows to see Abbotsford, not for the first ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... admiration and envy of the neighbors, for the size of the crops as well as the condition of the workers. Their comfort was amply secured. The general rule was three hours' rest at midday and a Saturday half-holiday. At the height of the season hours were longer, but there was a system of prizes, for four or five months in the year, from $1 a week to a picayune; with an extra prize of a $5 gold piece for anyone picking ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... Lionel (like all great men, a little before his time) had pleaded hygiene in vain. He was smacked hastily and bundled off to a preparatory school, where his aptitude for smuggling sweets would have lost him many a half-holiday had not his services been required at outside-left in the hockey eleven. With some difficulty he managed to pass into Eton, and three years later—with, one would imagine, still more difficulty—managed to get superannuated. At Cambridge ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... my dear. The Andersons live three miles off," she explained, "and are much confined by their school. They may possibly call on Saturday afternoon, as Saturday is a half-holiday; but Sunday after church is a more likely time.—We do not much approve of Sunday visits; and I dare say you feel the same: but this is a particular case,—people living three miles off, you know, and keeping a school. And being ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... what I wanted to say, was, that as we are rather slack just now, if you would give me a half-holiday to-morrow, I think I would go up-town and make a call ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... is stated, has invited President WILSON to play a game of golf. In the event of a match being arranged there is a growing desire that the occasion should be made a half-holiday throughout the war-area. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... Sunday the whole summer through but you may find all Chaucer's pilgrims, man and woman for man and woman, on board the Lord of the Isles or the Clacton Belle. Why, I have seen the Wife of Bath on the Lord of the Isles myself. She was eating her luncheon off an Ally Sloper's Half-Holiday, which was spread out upon her knees. Whether it was I who had had too much beer or she I cannot tell, God knoweth; and whether or no I was caught up into Paradise, again I cannot tell; but I certainly did hear unspeakable ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... incredibly blind and bored. He went along country roads while all the birds were piping and chirruping and cheeping and singing, and looked at fresh new things, and felt as happy and irresponsible as a boy with an unexpected half-holiday. And if ever the thought of Miriam returned to him he controlled his mind. He came to country inns and sat for unmeasured hours talking of this and that to those sage carters who rest for ever in the taps of country ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... blew up, reach the limit of what is imposing to the imagination. And our naval annals owe some of their interest to the fantastic and beautiful appearance of old warships and the romance that invests the sea and everything sea-going in the eyes of English lads on a half-holiday at the coast. Nay, and what we know of the misery between decks enhances the bravery of what was done by giving it something for contrast. We like to know that these bold and honest fellows contrived to live, and to keep bold and honest, among absurd and vile surroundings. No ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... half-holiday for the opening of the hospital, and as Amherst and Justine turned into the street, parties of workers were dispersing toward their houses. They were still a dull-eyed stunted throng, to whom air and movement seemed to have been too long denied; but ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... had to say, Charles Critchlow departed, according to his custom. He unceremoniously let himself out by the side door, and passed with wavy apron round the corner of King Street into the Square and so to his own shop, which ignored the Thursday half-holiday. Miss Insull ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... very rare, we are told by Janssen, while shorter hours were of common occurrence. In this country, in the fifteenth century, Rogers says, "the workmen worked only forty-eight hours a week."(9) The Saturday half-holiday, too, which we consider as a modern conquest, was in reality an old medieval institution; it was bathing-time for a great part of the community, while Wednesday afternoon was bathing-time for the Geselle.(10) And although school meals did not exist—probably because ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... motion. The next day was a half-holiday; and a police court is always attractive to infant minds. And the presence of a real excuse for attending made the ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... off the stool and coming close to her] Viv: lets go and enjoy the Saturday half-holiday somewhere, like ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... and I,' cried Monkey and Jane Anne, for it was a half-holiday and all were free. Jimbo would not have appeared to ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... master and his assistant were busy from morning until dusk, and already Andre-Louis was being paid now by the lessons that he gave, the master allowing him one half of the fee in each case for himself, an arrangement which the assistant found profitable. On Sundays the academy made half-holiday; but on this Sunday such had been the state of suspense and ferment in the city that no one having appeared by eleven o'clock both des Amis and Andre-Louis had gone out. Little they thought as they lightly took leave ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... half-holiday, Ethel and Millicent decided that they would try to collect a scratch team for some hockey practice in ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... her only brother had been killed. She had a moment of desperate distress; but there was a big family to be helped by her small earnings, and the next morning punctually she was back at work. In this same work-room the women have one half-holiday in the week, without reduction of pay; yet if an order has to be rushed through for a hospital they give up that one afternoon as gaily as if they were doing it for their pleasure. But if any one who has lived ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... was quite true. There were no breakers out beyond the said selvage-wave, because the wind had fallen a great deal, and seemed to have given up the idea of making any more white foam-crests for the present. But there would be more wind again in the night, said authority. It was only a half-holiday for Neptune. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... that, in fact. Used to tell me how worried his mother was for fear he'd get to smokin' cigarettes, or shootin' craps, or indulgin' in other big-town vices. Havin' seen mother, I could well believe it. Nice, refined old girl, still wearin' a widow's bonnet. Shows up occasionally on a half-holiday and lets Vincent take her to the Metropolitan ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... wish for it to have come originally from himself; it was not very easy to find anything that would do, but ere long it occurred to her that she might enlist his love of music on her side, and asked him one day when he was spending a half-holiday at her house whether he would like her to buy an organ for him to play on. Of course, the boy said yes; then she told him about her grandfather and the organs he had built. It had never entered into his head that he could make one, but when he gathered from what ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... of Maggie's set want to invite the Aneta set to a sort of general party. We should like it to be on the half-holiday, if possible. We want to give them a right royal entertainment in order to knock some of their stuck-upness out of them. We wish for ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... had been a fair sample of Todd's usual half-holiday. Feeling no heart for any serious work for the Perry, he had spent it in reading half a worthless novel, and skimming through a magazine, and feeling muddled and discontented in consequence. He had the uneasy feeling that he was an arrant ass in thus fooling time away, but had not sufficient ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... ears of the Fleet—the Flag-Captain, who takes me through the great ship, with his vigilant, spare face, and his understanding, kindly talk about his men; many of whom on this Thursday afternoon—the quasi half-holiday of the Fleet when in harbour—are snatching an hour's sleep when and where they can. That sleep-abstinence of the Navy—sleep, controlled, measured out, reduced to a bare minimum, among thousands of men, ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... former, and uttered the latter part of these words, it was plain to see that he was fidgety. He had put on superior clothes to get up with; and the clerks had whispered to one another that it must be his wedding day, and ought to end in a half-holiday all round, and be chalked thenceforth on the calendar; but instead of being joyful and jocular, like a man who feels a saving Providence over him, the lawyer was as dismal, and unsettled and splenetic, as a prophet on the brink of wedlock. But the very last thing that ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... out" a little earlier than usual, and went slowly home. Dick was there before her; he had been taking a half-holiday. He had made the tea and toasted the bread for a little surprise. He came up and said, "Why, Sene, your hands are cold!" and warmed them ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... afternoon,—the day on which members of Parliament dine out,—and at that moment Mr. Bonteen entered the drawing-room, having left the House for his half-holiday at six o'clock. Lady Eustace got up, and gave him her hand, and smiled upon him as though he were indeed her god. "You look so tired and so ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... remained in his bed, and his friends visited him there. One afternoon he asked for his little gown-boy, and the child was brought to him, and sate by the bed with a very awestricken face; and then gathered courage, and tried to amuse him by telling him how it was a half-holiday, and they were having a cricket-match with the St. Peter's boys in the green, and Grey Friars was in and winning. The Colonel quite understood about it; he would like to see the game; he had played many a game ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... here. He always spends his Saturday half-holiday at home now. The rest are away. Alec and Bob are off on the hill by the timber lot, trying Mr. Ferry's toboggan with him—it's just come. Uncle Tim has gone over to see how they're making ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... kissed the fair Bostonian, and Mason felt a sensation of joyous freedom that recalled his youthful days when a half-holiday ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... young, tired, anaemic, debilitated mother, with a number of young children born at very close intervals, often denied even a half-holiday, let alone an adequate one, unable to afford suitable domestic assistance, often with poor housing or domestic arrangements, and completely exhausted with the incessant round of cleaning, cooking, and the strain ...
— Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Various Aspects of the Problem of Abortion in New Zealand • David G. McMillan |
