"Ironing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... girl, Patty," returned her mother, winking away the moisture in her eyes, as she went on with her ironing. "Amabel, don't you be trampling on Patty's best dress, there's a good little lass. Well, as I was saying, Patty, only the children do interrupt so. There, Joe and Ben, just take your sugar-sticks and be off to play. I think I have found a nice little place ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... large kettle of yarn to attend upon. Lucretia and self rinse, scour through many waters, get out, dry, attend to, bring in, do up and sort 110 score of yarn; this with baking and ironing. Then went ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... with the girl I knew. I was earning ten shillings a week and paid that for my board and helped with the ironing for my washing. Her father had got out of work again for times were bad and they were glad to get my money. Lizzie got ten shillings a week and she had a brother about fourteen who earned five shillings. That was about all they had to live on often, nine in ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... chivalrous determination he visited his lovely and all unconscious mistress the next day, but the fair lady was busy ironing.—"I shall see her again this evening," thought he, as he turned slowly towards the town; and see her that evening he did. They rambled out towards the cape, or promontory, almost invariably the scene of their summer evening walks; for lovers, after one ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... know, Sissy, it wouldn't be nice if Miss Grant were to get her face all puckered and creasy like that, just as if it wanted ironing out, as Susette did with my frock when Murray scrunched it all up under his pillow to hide it. But I suppose you ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... ironing.] Yes, yes, that'll be it. If he wants two hundred, six hundred's sure to have come. There's no ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... later, while old black mammy was ironing in the sitting room, Kintchin came in at the door which always stood open, and looking about, slowly went up to the old woman and inquired if she ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... opened the door, and led me in. It was an awful experience. Dame Shand stood at her table ironing. She was as tall as Mrs. Mitchell, and that was enough to prejudice me against her at once. She wore a close-fitting widow's cap, with a black ribbon round it. Her hair was grey, and her face was as ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... Bishop say 't was the natest vestry in the diocese? And this new cojutor with his gran' accent, which no one can understand, and his gran' furniture, and his whipster of a servant, begor, no one can stand him. We must all clear out. And, after me eighteen years, scrubbing, and washing, and ironing, wid me two little orphans, which that blackguard, Jem Darcy (the Lord have mercy on his sowl!) left me, must go to foreign countries to airn me bread, because I'm not good enough for his reverence. Well, 't is you'll be sorry. But, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... and live on that alone. We are buying our own home, a flivver stands in the garage, our house is nicely furnished (a good deal of the furniture we have made ourselves) and we dress and live respectably. I do all my own cooking, washing, ironing, sewing, cleaning, baking and gardening, with a little writing thrown in as a spare-time occupation. No electric machine, $300 gas stove, $700 bedroom set, nor blue-goose stenciled kitchen yet graces our home. No little tea-wagon runs our food to the table. ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... once have been the attractive force of the California gold fields, washing soiled linen can hardly be regarded as satisfying a national instinct, or thumping through the long hours of the night upon an ironing table a soul-filling amusement. Much may be said of "the golden fleece," but these are no modern Argonauts. They are money-making as our friends the Jews, but no "high emprise" or "grand endeavor" fires their calm pulse, and much as has been written of the coolie system and the ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... invents a motive-power that can be applied to house-work, washing, churning, mincing meat and vegetables, driving sewing-machines, and—if it only could—kneading bread, sweeping floors, washing dishes, ironing clothes, and making beds. My book agency was undertaken for the sake of travel,—of learning something, not only of the land we live in, but of its people and homes. If I had gone from house to house and with malice aforethought begged an outright gift of a sum equal to my commission ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... very warm, for Norah had been ironing. She was a thrifty soul, and when she had a big fire to heat her irons she liked to bake good things to eat in the oven at the same time. A basket full of beautifully ironed and starched clothes sat on the table, ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... who gave to Maude every possible assistance, and this was John. "Having tried his hand," as he said, "at everything in Marster Norton's school," he proved of invaluable service—sweeping, dusting, washing dishes, cleaning knives, and once ironing Dr. Kennedy's shirts, when old Hannah was in what he called her "tantrums." But alas for John! the entire print of the iron upon the bosom of one, to say nothing of the piles of starch upon another, and more than all, the tremendous scolding which ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... day mother went to visit an old friend of hers, who has a beautiful place outside of the city. The baby's nurse had ironing to do, so I promised to sit in the nursery till it was finished. Lucy came, with her books, to sit with me. She always follows like my shadow. After a while Mrs. Embury called. I hesitated a little about ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... failure. I am a widow for 9 years. I have very pore learning altho it would not make much diffrent if I would be throughly edacated for I could not get any better work to do, such as house work, washing and ironing and all such work that are injering to a woman with femail wekness and they pay so little for so hard work that it is just enough to pay room rent and a little some thing to eat. I have found a very good remady that I really ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... thing mysterious, we can see, by the darkening of his face, how he feels the awe of it. One of his friends, in hurrying to get his ironing done, to get ready to celebrate the new year, brought on an attack of hemorrhage of the lungs. Of course, it was necessary to keep him entirely still, which his companions knew; but, at the same time, they were ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... Tom, not with Tom,' she kept on repeating to herself, as she cleared the table and washed the dishes, and then brought in and folded the clothes for the morrow's ironing. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... possessed to follow that path and watch the sun rise while sitting under that apple tree; and never yet have I got to the place where there wasn't bread, or churning, or a baby, or visitors, or a wash, or ironing, or some reason why I couldn't go. Maybe I'm a fool, but sure as you're a foot high, I've got to take that trip pretty soon now, or my family is going to see trouble. And last night thinking it over for the thousandth time I said ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... another (though I knew the greater part of them already, to speak to, and they me), that I got leave of absence on purpose, and established myself in a corner, near the petition. It was stretched out, I recollect, on a great ironing-board, under the window, which in another part of the room made a bedstead at night. The internal regulations of the place, for cleanliness and order, and for the government of a common room in the ale-house, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... home. The room in which he sat down, was an extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about it, nevertheless, which cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree. Late as the Dutch clock showed it to be, Kit's mother was still hard at work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very wide awake, was sitting bolt upright in a clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his great round eyes. It was rather a queer-looking ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... work as chiropodists to keep the feet of the prisoners in good condition, and the laundrymen, besides washing and ironing all the clothes, sheets and pillowcases, had to wash and disinfect all the blankets once a month. There were no walls surrounding the prison building, but the reservation being the headquarters of an ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... when my sister used to send Josiah out in the morning to work, he would come back in the evening with his pay that he had earned in the blacksmith shop and give it to her, and Aunt Caroline would bring her money, too, that she had made by a hard day's, washing and ironing. Oh, yes, it is all wrong and dreadful, but we will treat them well and wait for the day to ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... ironing at the time, and her back was partly toward me. She turned about with a startled or wondering look in her face and said, "What do ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The daughter was busy at some ironing in the outer room; she was a dull, lack-lustre creature, and though she comprehended the gifts that had been brought her, seemed hardly to have life enough to thank the donor. That wasn't quite like a fairy tale, Daisy thought. No doubt this poor woman must have things to eat, but there was not ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the field when I was able. That was when I was in the country. When I came to the city I usually did washing and ironing. Now I can't do anything. All the people I used to work for is dead. There was one woman in particular. She was a good woman, too. I don't have any help at all now, except my son. He has a family of his own—wife ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... fell back, and I heard her mutter, "So vulgar! so ungenteel!" However, she recovered herself, and appeared to be for some time in deep thought. At last she rose up, ordered me to fetch something extra for supper, and recommenced her ironing. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... merely saw her aunts grow more and more saving, pinching here and there, cutting off this and that relentlessly. Less meat and fish were bought; the woman who had lately been coming two days a week for washing, ironing, and scrubbing was dismissed; the old bonnets of the season before were brushed up and retrimmed; there were no drives to Moderation or trips to Portland. Economy was carried to its very extreme; but though Miranda was well-nigh as gloomy and uncompromising ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... what's the matter? You been overworking again, ironing my shirts and collars when they ought to go ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... and consoled herself by giving the apprentice, who was ironing hose and towels by her side, a little push. Gervaise had a cap belonging to Mme Boche in her hand and was ironing the crown with a round ball, when a tall, bony woman came in. She was ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... put her away, she was that frightened little Margery would get Junior killed off in some horrible manner, like the time she got him to see how high he dast jump out of the apple tree from, or like the time she told him, one ironing day, that if he drank a whole bowlful of starch it would make him have whiskers like his pa in fifteen minutes. Things like that—not fatal, mebbe, ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... came, she began to feel stifled in the house, where she had been busy ironing curtains, and tying on her old straw hat went out for a breath of air on the road. There was a light mist over the watercourses, veiling the pollards and thorn trees and the reddening thickets of Ansdore's bush—a flavour of ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... at is Paris," said Humphrey, "and they tell me 'tis where the king's head was cut off years ago. My poor mother used to tell me about that business. 'Hummy,' she used to say, 'I was a young maid then, and as I was at home ironing mother's caps one afternoon the parson came in and said, "They've cut the king's head off, Jane; and what 'twill ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... the heads of infants while sleeping—its dangers. Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &c., in a nursery. Their evil tendency. ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... married soldiers have a living-room, scullery, and one, two, or three bedrooms according to the size of their families. A laundry is provided adjacent to the married quarters, equipped with washing-troughs, wringer, drying-closet, and ironing-room; and the women are encouraged to use this in preference to doing ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... sublimely confident. She would understand Sarah's sharp tongue, her unhappy brother, the cruelty of Charley Long, the justness of the bookkeeper's beating, the day-long, month-long, year-long toil at the ironing-board. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... off and wraped it up in a towel that was drying in front of the fire, and laid it on a bundle of clothes ready for ironing that was on the table. Then he went ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... ironing it, perhaps," he chuckled. "No, no! We used to wash all fleeces before they were clipped, 'tis true. But your father says that now buyers care little for them washed. Folks will pay about as much for good wool unwashed as washed. It is a lucky thing for us, ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... occupied all day and night in stitching, hemming, ripping, combing, ironing, crimping, for her mistress; reading to her when in bed,—for the girl was mistress of the two languages, and had a sweet voice and manner—could take no share in Madame Fribsby's soirees, nor indeed was she much missed, or considered of sufficient consequence to appear ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... moment Nicholas saw on a chair a large woolen coverlet, which was used for the ironing-table; he seized it, and adroitly threw it over the head of Francois, who, in spite of all his efforts, finding himself entangled in its thick folds, could make no use of his arms. Then Nicholas threw himself upon him, and, with the aid of his mother, carried him into the cellar. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... was in sorry, snappy case all day. The blow had fallen, and within a fort-night Tom would go to sea. This dismal fact depressed her not a little, and she snuffled over her ironing, and her voice grated worse than ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... to see "her poor dame" so ill. The doctor called in the forenoon and found his patient easier. Later in the day Mary said to Susan that as her master had taken physic, he would require more gruel, but as there was still some left, she need not make it fresh "as she was ironing." Susan replied that the gruel was stale, being then four days old, and, further, that having herself tasted it, she felt very ill, upon which facts Mary made no comment. She thoughtfully warned the ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... gore somebody. There were no proper cupboards for their clothes; what cupboards there were either would not close at all, or burst open whenever anyone passed by them. There were no pots and pans; there was no copper in the washhouse, nor even an ironing-board in the maids' room. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... ironing-board," was the answer. "It's down in the kitchen. I'll get it. Don't you know how we used to put it up on a chair and then slide down ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's • Laura Lee Hope
... us as quality. On the contrary, she often tried to overbear us with the gentility of her former places; and would tell the lady over whom she reigned, that she had lived with folks worth their three and four hundred thousand dollars, who never complained as she did of the ironing. Yet she had a sufficient regard for the literary occupations of the family, Mr. Johnson having been an author. She even professed to have herself written a book, which was still in manuscript, and preserved somewhere ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... of an ironing-woman, were apprentices in a foundry of the near-by Ronda. The younger passed his days in a continuous capering, indulging in death-defying leaps, climbing trees, walking on his hands and performing acrobatic stunts from all the ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... Present samples of seaming, hemming, darning, and either knitting or crocheting, and press out a Scout uniform, as sample of ironing. ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... her head from the white petticoat she was ironing, and gazed out of the doorway and down the valley with a warm light in her eyes and a glowing face. The snow-tipped mountains far above and away, the fir-covered, cedar-ranged foothills, and, lower down, the wonderful maple and ash woods, with their hundred autumn tints, all merging to one ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... things—had been discharging loads of women and children at the Benton ranch, tired mothers and their insistent offspring. To the women this strenuous relaxation came as manna in the wilderness. What was the dreary round of washing, ironing, baking, and the chain of household tasks that must be done as primitively as in Genesis, if only they might dance and forget? So the mothers came early and stayed late, and the primary sessions of the dances fulfilled ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... the decomposition of the fluid begins, and you will have floods of light for the mere cost of the machine. I've nearly got the lighting part, but I want to attach to it a heating, cooking, washing and ironing apparatus. It's going to be the great thing, but we'd better keep this appropriation going while I ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... her search, Lucy returned to the house, and there found Deborah ironing at the long table in the hall, and crooning away her one dismal song of "Barbara ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... husband, in an undertone of amiable chiding; and the buggy gave a jerk of thankful relief as its principal burden left it for the sidewalk, diffusing the sweet smell of the ironing-table. ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... in Honora that compelled Bridget to stop her ironing on Tuesdays in order to make hot waffles for a young woman who was late to breakfast? Bridget, who would have filled the kitchen with righteous wrath if Aunt Mary had transgressed the rules of the house, which were like the laws of the Medes and Persians! And ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... his high chair as good as gold, a precious, watching me doing of the ironing. Get along with you, do—my ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... was—who when she noticed that her husband's temper was causing him annoyance, took pains to help him to get rid of it. To relieve his sufferings I have known her search the house for a last month's morning paper and, ironing it smooth, lay it warm and neatly folded ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... Bell and Bella returned home they found that Mary Erskine had made all the preparations necessary for the commencement of the school. She had made a desk for the two children by means of the ironing-board, which was a long and wide board, made very smooth on both sides. This board Mary Erskine placed across two chairs, having previously laid two blocks of wood upon the chairs in a line with the back side of the board, in such a manner as to raise that side and to cause the board to slope forward ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... for them, for black servants are cheap down in this region, and by the way, dear, when you go up to Crabtree again, you must start an inquiry for a good colored cook among your lady friends. Tell them you want a good one, who understands washing and ironing and all about cooking. At present we boys do all the cooking down here and we send our laundry up to Crabtree, where there are only three Chinamen ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... dwelling,[391] or require that all tanks with a capacity of more than ten gallons, used for the storage of gasoline, be buried at least three feet under ground,[392] or which prohibit washing and ironing in public laundries and wash houses, within defined territorial limits, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.[393] Equally sanctioned by the Fourteenth Amendment is the demolition and removal by cities of wooden buildings erected within defined fire limits ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... Executive Committee was busy doing something with a little bit of meat. Two little girls were boiling potatoes in old tin cans. In another room set apart for washing a sturdy little long-haired revolutionary was cleaning a shirt. A woman with her hair done up in a blue handkerchief was very carefully ironing a blouse. Another was busy stewing sheets, or something of that kind, in a big cauldron. And all the time people from all parts of the hotel were coming with their pitchers and pans, from fine copper kettles to disreputable empty meat tins, to ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... on wool, silk, and dresses of all kinds differs from that on underwear and white work. Muslin underwear requires frequent washing and ironing, hence the first essential is durability; close, small stitches, all raw edges carefully turned and stitched securely. Seams that are to come close to the body should lie perfectly flat. A round seam would wear out sooner by coming into frequent contact with the washboard and iron, ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... always seemed to me that she was going down a flight of steps, even when she was walking on level ground. She held herself erect with her arms folded tightly over her bosom. And whatever she was doing, whatever she undertook, if she were only threading a needle or ironing a petticoat—the effect was always beautiful and somehow—you may not believe it—touching. Her Christian name was Raissa, but we used to call her Black-lip: she had on her upper lip a birthmark; a little dark-bluish spot, as though she had been eating ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... letters she had received from her husband in as many months. The boys had, in a measure, justified their father's faith in them, since Rachel's illness, and Dorothy was released from much of her out-door work; but the silence of the kitchen, when she was there alone with her ironing and dish-washing, was a heavier burden than she ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... continued Wallace, "who came down early one winter morning, and after warming himself a moment by the sitting-room fire, he went out in the kitchen. It happened to be ironing day, and the girl was engaged in ironing at a great table by the kitchen fire. We will call ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... now twelve—a dwarf in statue, hump-backed, weazen-faced and shrill-voiced, unsightly in all eyes but those of his parents. To them he was a miracle of precocity and beauty. His mother took in fine ironing to pay for his private tuition from a public school-teacher who lived in the neighborhood. He learned fast and eagerly. His father, at the teacher's suggestion, subscribed to a circulating library and the same ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... wheels is very pleasant, doubtless, but one misses a lot. I love the nearness of Hillview, to hear Mawson and B.B. converse in the kitchen, to smell (this is the most comfortable and homely smell) the ironing of clean clothes, and to know (also by the sense of smell) what I am going to have for ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... mean to say that our Sarah, daughter of the Reverend Samuel Blake, wilfully broke the Sabbath by ironing?" Concentrated horror appeared ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... help a lot," broke in Mrs. Welcome, hurriedly. "They do all their ironing at night. And that's all anyone could ask of them after they come ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... to keep my word with him. I am obliged to take exercise three or four hours in the forenoon and two after dinner, to keep off the infernal spasms which since last winter have attacked me with such violence, as if all the imps that used to plague poor Caliban were washing, wringing, and ironing the unshapely but useful bag which Sir John Sinclair treats with such distinction—my stomach, in short. Now, as I have much to do of my own, I fear I can hardly be of use to you in the present case, which I am very sorry for, as I like the subject, and would be pleased ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... his flannels in the boot cupboard, he came and flung them onto the table where Aggie bent over her ironing-board. A ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... minute they were talking over old times together in the little sitting-room over the shop. CYRIL MUSH was delighted. "You can't charge an old friend anything for just ironing his hat," he said, with his peculiarly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... said before, the most deformed and helpless, and maimed and sick, are the peculiar objects of Dona Margarita's care; nevertheless, we saw various healthy, happy-looking girls, busied in various ways, washing and ironing, and sewing, whose very eyes gleamed when we mentioned her name, and who spoke of her with a respect and affection that it was pleasant to witness. Truly, this woman is entitled to happy dreams and soft slumbers! The remainder of her fortune she employs ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... girl students is having a dress fitted by one of her classmates who is a dressmaker. She at length walks proudly from the platform in her completed new gown, while the young dressmaker looks anxiously after her to make sure that it "hangs right behind." Other girls are doing washing and ironing with the drudgery removed in accordance with advanced Tuskegee methods. Still others are hard at work on hats, mats, and dresses, while boys from the tailoring department sit crosslegged working on suits and ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... I shall be in nobody's way,' said Miss Tox, 'and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs Richards will do her mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever it is, without minding me: and you'll smoke your pipe, too, if you're ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... were burning. She had been cold all day. A sound like the tolling of a bell beat in her ears. The children's voices were choked and distant. She wondered if Biddy were drunk, she seemed to dance about so at her ironing-table, and wondered if she must dismiss her, and who could supply her place. She tried to put my room in order, for she was expecting me that night by the last train, but gave up the undertaking ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... from the smaller homes. Of course Mrs. Airedale and Mrs. Collie could afford to pay any wages at all. So now the best he could do was to have Mrs. Spaniel, the charwoman, come up from the village to do the washing and ironing, two days a week. The rest of the work he undertook himself. On a clear afternoon, when the neighbours were not looking, he would take his own shirts and things down to the pond—putting them neatly in the bottom of the red express-wagon, ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... temper like a steel-trap, who remained with me just one week, and then went off in a fit of spite. To her succeeded a rosy, good-natured, merry lass, who broke the crockery, burned the dinner, tore the clothes in ironing, and knocked down every thing that stood in her way about the house, without at all discomposing herself about the matter. One night she took the stopper from a barrel of molasses, and came singing off up stairs, while ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Their compass points to the south. In building a house they make the roof first and the foundation is the last thing they put in. The key in the door turns backward to lock it. The kitchen is in the front while the best room is in the back of the house. When a Chinaman sprinkles clothes for ironing purposes he uses his mouth as the sprinkler. I never had a collar washed in China that was not ironed wrong side out. He pays the doctor when he is well and stops the pay the moment he gets sick. You can almost ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... rinse and starch, and was ironing it when Jack came in, rather unceremoniously, as was his habit now that he came so often. This time he went to the kitchen door, as the other was locked, and found Mrs. Biggs giving the final touches to the apron, which she held up for ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... We are dining early to-day, and having nothing but cold meat, in order that the servants may get on with their ironing; and yet, of course, we must ask him to dinner—Edith's brother-in-law and all. And your papa is in such low spirits this morning about something—I don't know what. I went into the study just now, and he had his face on the table, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... steps outside, and the fresh young voice thrilling over those familiar words brought the woman to her senses, and with a cry of desperation, Aunt Maria caught up the heavy ironing board in the corner and banged it with all her strength full upon the hissing coil on the floor, regardless of the fate of the cat. But the hysterical scream of the woman had broken the charm, and the frightened feline made a frantic dash for the screen door, spitting and clawing in its ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... humble conductor into the small but cosy living-room behind, which the large number of its occupants caused to appear even smaller than it was. John Dudgeon was there, and Mrs. John, and several offshoots of the Dudgeon tree. Mrs. Dudgeon was ironing at a table beneath the one small window, in the fading light. She was a staid and dapper matron, with here and there the faintest line of care upon her comely face. A couple of the children were rolling upon the hearthrug ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... take off your fine clothes and help Winthrop more than you do," said his mother, going on with a shirt she was ironing. ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... to her ironing-table, as if she didn't care for company; and Dumps and Tot, seeing that she was tired of them, went back to the house, ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... in mourning on the night of her funeral, but I have just been to put some flowers on her grave, and I took it off afore going that the damp mid not spoil the crape. You see, she was bad a long time, and I have to be careful, and do washing and ironing for a living. She hurt her side with wringing up the large sheets she had to wash for the Castle ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... "The washing and ironing are well over, thank goodness, mother quiet, the boys out of the way, and May comfortable, so I'll indulge myself in a blissful day after my own heart," Psyche said, as she shut herself into her little studio, and prepared ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... Miss Robinson liked it; but hoped she "would not ask that family o'niggers,—that would make it so vulgar;" and she took a large pinch of Scotch snuff, and waddled off to finish her ironing. Mrs. Deacon Jackson—she was a second wife, with no children—hoped that "Sally Bright would not be asked, because her father was in the State Prison for passing counterfeit money; and the example ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... say he did, not in so many words, but that was what I thought he meant. It was like this, sir," continued Mrs. Brunton, as they stood face to face on the wet gravel: "just about this time yesterday I was busy ironing, when my nephew, the lad you used to send with letters, who's here again for his summer holidays, comes to me an' says, 'You're wanted.' So I went, and there was a young gentleman looking fit to drop. He'd a bag with him, and he'd walked all the way from Upthorpe station, ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... thousands of Chinese, all the washing is performed by them. They work in the open air, just as the English and Scotch women used to do in their public washing-grounds, standing in the water rubbing and wringing their clothes. They have a curious practice in ironing, of spraying the linen with water through their mouths. They do the work very thoroughly, and at the same time cheaply. A Chinaman will live very comfortably on forty pounds a year, and, as he is an almost incessant worker, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... was the earth's great ironing day. And - above all - a day that converts a railway traveller into a martyr, and a first-class carriage into a moving representation of the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... his mother's, to whom Ernest had been always much attached as she also to him, for she had known him ever since he had been five or six years old. Her name was Susan. He sat down in the rocking-chair before her fire, and Susan went on ironing at the table in front of the window, and a smell of ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... must be seated. The leader may choose any positions that are familiar, such as arm movements, head bendings, trunk bendings, jumping, hopping, etc., or imitate familiar actions, such as sawing, hammering, washing, ironing, ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... had come to Crampton, leaving Andy at work for a farmer in the place where they had last lived, she had obtained what sewing she could from the families in the village, and had besides obtained a chance to help about the ironing at Colonel Preston's. Washing was too hard for her, for ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... with it. Miss Theodosia looked happy. She felt pleasant little tweaks at her heartstrings as if small grimy hands were ringing them, playing a tender little tune. Scorched, blundering young hands—Stefana's. The little tune rang plaintive in her ears. She had a vision of Stefana toiling over the ironing of her dresses and going to bed exhausted, when the toil was over. Miss Theodosia's eyes followed Carruther's retreating little figure till it reached the House of Little Children and disappeared from view. What had she, Theodosia Baxter, to do with houses of little ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... thirteen-year-old girl who worked for her after school hours. Lucy Anthony cooked their meals on the hearth of the big kitchen fireplace, and in the large brick oven beside it baked crisp brown loaves of bread. In addition, washing, ironing, mending, and spinning filled her days. But she was capable and strong and was doing only what all women in this new country were expected to do. She taught her young daughters to help her, and Susan, even before she was six, was very useful; ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... three eggs, add one-half pound of sugar, and one-half pound of finely cut figs, one-half pound of either blanched almonds cut into long slices, or cut up walnuts. Heat a large pan, pass ironing-wax over surface, lay in waxed paper, and drop spoonfuls of mixture on paper, same distance apart. Bake very slowly in very moderate oven. Remove and let cool; then take paper out with the macaroons, ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... so heavy in his hand for years—it was just as if the gudgeons wanted oiling. That was on the Sunday, as I say. During the week after, it chanced that William's wife was staying up late one night to finish her ironing, she doing the washing for Mr. and Mrs. Hardcome. Her husband had finished his supper and gone to bed as usual some hour or two before. While she ironed she heard him coming down stairs; he stopped to put on his boots at the stair- foot, where he always ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... sighed as she took a turn at the ironing while she told her the news, and Mary washed the dinner things, "I am dreadfully nervous. I wish we had a cook and a parlourmaid, and I wish we were able to buy all the best things that can be got. Granny does so like to have nice ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Sarah, "The lack of system in housework is what makes it drudgery. If young housekeepers would sit down and plan their work, then do it, they would save time and labor. When using the fire in the range for ironing or other purposes, use the oven for preparing dishes of food which require long, slow cooking, like baked beans, for instance. Bake a cake or a pudding, or a pan of quickly-made corn pone to serve with baked beans, for a hearty meal on a cold winter day. A dish of rice pudding ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... set aside for this purpose should have good light and air as well as easily cleaned wall and floor surfaces. There should be at least two tubs as well as a washing machine and a small ironing machine. There should also be space provided for indoor drying of clothes since, even in the country, a week of stormy weather is not unheard of. Some kind of a stove is also necessary for any needed boiling of clothes, making starch, or ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... grass—and again I recall That hour we spent by the weir of the paper-mill Watching together the curving thunderous fall Of frothing amber, bemused by the roar until My mind was as blank as the speckless sheets that wound On the hot steel ironing-rollers perpetually turning In the humming dark rooms of the mill: all sense and discerning By the stunning and dazzling oblivion of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... their accomplishment, and he was so successful in inspiring her with those same ideals that her pride helped her over many a weary day's cleaning. She entered into them week after week and became expert at ironing, baking, and all the little offices of the domestic altar. All her strength was given to her work each day, and for a time she succeeded comfortably, but as the days shortened and the routine became more exacting she longed for the ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... her after her triumph. In grim silence she preceded him up the outside staircase, threw open the door to the house of Higgins and marched in. She commanded him to fetch a hod of coal. She rattled her irons, touched her finger to the bottom of a hot one—tszt—and brought it down on the ironing board with a masterful jounce. And then she glared out of the window at the massive ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... own experience says—"I thought I was going to Spelman to learn books, but I soon found that sewing, washing and ironing, sweeping and dusting, cooking and all sorts of work are included ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... day, for the sun went under a cloud soon after breakfast, and a cold drizzling rain began to fall. It gave me the rheumatism, and I was glad to curl up in a big market-basket on the shelf behind the stove, and enjoy the heat of the roaring fire. Nora was ironing, and singing as she worked. Not since I left the warm California garden had I been as peaceful and as comfortable. The heat made me so drowsy that not even the thump, bump of Nora's iron on the ironing-board, or the ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... 1865 at Goteborg. At first all the mothers were opposed to these schools, but they soon favored them. One cannot enter these schools without a diploma from the common schools. Each teacher is given twenty-four pupils. The girls are taught to make their own apparel, gardening, cooking, washing, ironing, mending and keeping home ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... chamber which the old man called his artist workshop. It was in total darkness, but through the narrow open door in the middle of the left wall one could see what was going on in Barbara's little bow-windowed room. This was quite brightly lighted, for she was ironing and crimping ruffs for the neck, small lace ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... two, to refresh the weary frames of the men and cattle, toiling under the burthen of the camp equipage. The camp on those days used to present even a more busy scene than usual. The dobies were employed in washing and ironing their master's clothes, while the other servants and camp-followers were mending, making, and repairing garments, saddles, and harness, and ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... used to get together in their cabins and tell one another the news in the evening. They visited, the same as anybody else. Evenings, Mamma did the washing and ironing and cooked for ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... dive for a moment into a Chinese wash-cellar. "John" does three-fourths of the washing of California. His lavatories are on every street. "Hip Tee, Washing and Ironing," says the sign, evidently the first production of an amateur in lettering. Two doors above is the establishment of Tong Wash—two below, that of Hi Sing. Hip Tee and five assistants are busy ironing. The odor is a trinity of steam, damp clothes and opium. More Mongolian tongues ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... the modest self-possession of a lady. The new-comer took a survey of the labors of a family of ten members, including four or five young children, and, looking, seemed at once to throw them into system, matured her plans, arranged her hours of washing, ironing, baking, cleaning, rose early, moved deftly, and in a single day the slatternly and littered kitchen assumed that neat, orderly appearance that so often strikes one in New-England farm-houses. The work seemed to be all gone. Everything was nicely washed, brightened, put in place, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... man. But Uncle Roger says the supply in Mr. Marwood's vacation never amounts to much. I know an awfully funny story about old Mr. Davidson. He used to be the minister in Baywater, you know, and he had a large family and his children were very mischievous. One day his wife was ironing and she ironed a great big nightcap with a frill round it. One of the children took it when she wasn't looking and hid it in his father's best beaver hat—the one he wore on Sundays. When Mr. Davidson went to church next ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... finely molded cheek and lit up her pale-red hair to auburn, as she bent over the heavy household linen which she was mending for her aunt. No scene could have been more peaceful, if Mrs. Poyser, who was ironing a few things that still remained from the Monday's wash, had not been making a frequent clinking with her iron, and moving to and fro whenever she wanted it to cool; carrying the keen glance of her blue-gray eye from the kitchen to the dairy, where Hetty was making up the butter, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... failed to be impressed the clerk turned tail and fled. The ghost returned by a short cut, and the clerk found his wife calmly ironing the parson's surplice. He did not return to the "Bush" ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... say so? Stuffing herself, I'm sure. And poor Mr. Brown lying dead in the next house—and there's my washing waiting for soap—and there's Mrs. Jones hasn't sent my ironing-board home; and mercy knows how I'm to ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... the one who did the buying for the house. I would often wash out my tablecloths at night myself and iron them in the morning before breakfast. I would take boarders' washing, hire a woman to wash, then do the ironing myself. Columbia was a small village of not more than five hundred people. It was the terminal of a railroad called the Columbia Tap. Mr. Painter, the conductor, began boarding with us right off and in three or four days ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... and everywhere labor." Edouard Frere, in his scenes from humble life, which the skilful lithographer places within the means of all, represents the incidents of domestic existence among the poor. "The Prayer at the Mother's Knee," "The Woman at her Ironing Table," "The Child shelling Peas," "The Walk to School amid Rain and Sleet," are all charming idyls of every-day life. With yet greater skill and deeper pathos does the peasant Millet tell the story of his neighbors. The washerwomen, as the sun sets upon their labors, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... of the strain, she just dies. The obituary notice of her as the wife of so-and-so never tells how she just "gave out," having borne eight children and having done the cooking, washing, ironing, and sewing for the family, ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... in a charitable light, Nan consented, and went cheerfully on with her work, wondering how she could have thought ironing an infliction, and been so ungrateful for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... side of the machine in Fig. 44. If necessary, the surface speed of the middle or steam-heated roller may differ from the others so that a glazed effect—somewhat resembling that obtained by ordinary ironing—is imparted to the surface of the fabric. The faster moving roller is the steam-heated one. For ordinary calender finish, the surface speed of all ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... fact, a more corrupt Chinaman had never been smuggled into America. Ostensibly in the laundry business, and really a master workman in that line, the astute Chink had long since relinquished the labor over the tubs and ironing-board to Hop Wah, his silent partner. Ah Moy's chief interest in the establishment lay in its cavernous sub-cellar, where he conducted gaming tables and a smoking-'parlor' with flattering success. The gods evidently smiled upon him, for his den seemed to be unknown to the police, though they had ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... and Kaetchens were learning away almost as hard as the Hermanns and Fritzes, but the bigger sisters had what Lucy thought a better time of it. One of them was helping in the kitchen, and another in the ironing; but then they had their books and their music, and in the evening all the families came out into the pleasure gardens, and had little tables with coffee before them, and the mammas knitted, and the papas smoked, and the young ladies listened ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... corner stirred again; And the carved dog, curled in his arms, awoke, Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke. It piled in a maze round the ironing-place, And there on the snowy table wide Stood a Chinese lady of high degree, With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face . . . Yet she put away all form and pride, And laid her glimmering veil aside With a childlike smile for ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... while the measures used in selling rice and salt are so small that you can not take them seriously. The transaction reminds you of your childhood days when you were playing "keep store" with a nickel's worth of candy on the ironing-board. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... leather-bound book has grease on its cover, it can be removed by scraping French chalk or magnesia over the place, and ironing with a warm (not hot) iron. A simpler method is to apply benzine to the grease spots, (which dissolves the fatty material) and then dry the spot quickly with a fine cloth. This operation may be repeated, if not effectual at the first trial. The same method of applying benzine ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... When the ironing board was finally located, Mother had something for him to do. And when he was finished with that, Dad called for his help. So the afternoon wore on without letup—and also without any signs of progress in their moving. ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... of the sunshine through the open door, was wide awake. Customers came in for foaming tankards of beer, and sometimes a little girl, with a jug hidden under her apron, would appear, with a request that it might be filled for 'mother', who was ironing. Indeed, the number of women who were ironing that afternoon, and wanted to quench their thirst, was something wonderful; but Miss Twexby seemed to know all about it as she put a frothy head on each jug, and received the silver in exchange. At last, however, even Martha the wide-awake ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... of Ox Lease Farm. There are three doors. One opens to the staircase, one to the garden and a third into the back kitchen. At a table in the middle of the room EMILY stands ironing some net window curtains. JESSIE and ROBIN lean against the table watching her. By the open doorway, looking out on the garden, stands THOMAS, a mug of cider in one hand and a large slice of bread in the other. As he talks, he takes ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... collar; and then it was taken out of the washing-tub. It was starched, hung over the back of a chair in the sunshine, and was then laid on the ironing-blanket; then came the warm box-iron. "Dear lady!" said the collar. "Dear widow-lady! I feel quite hot. I am quite changed. I begin to unfold myself. You will burn a hole in me. Oh! ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... thought I, 'that you with that angel face are to be the wife of a commonplace man, to be the mother of a family and go into a dirty, smoky kitchen. Shall your tender hands become hard as leather with washing, ironing, kneading, and who knows what housework beside? Shall your angel cheeks fade from the heat of the oven and your eyes lose their diamond-shine from sewing?' Yes, so thought I, and my heart bled within me for this girl who ought to wear a queen's crown and live in a palace. ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous |
