"Sew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her bed, and, turning the covers back from one corner, began ripping a seam in the mattress. When the opening was wide enough she put in her thumb and finger and pulled out a handful of the curled hair. "I can easily put it back when I have used it, and sew up the hole in the mattress," she said to her conscience. "My! This is exactly what I needed." The hair was mixed, white and black, coarse and curly as a ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... to distinguish himself flushed the heart of each brave hunter. For whoever brought back the most game, so they believed, stood the best chance of winning the hand of Annadoah. Of all the unmarried maidens of the tribes, none cooked so well, none could sew so well as Annadoah, none was so skilled in the art of making ahttees and kamiks as Annadoah. And, ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... ingrain carpet was indeed very warm, beautiful, and comforting to the eye, and the sisters were suitably grateful to Providence, and devoutly thankful to themselves, that they had been enabled to buy, sew, and lay so many yards of it. But as they stood looking at their completed task, it was cruelly true that there ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... more than a peck of trouble. His elephant costume had all sorts of queer mishaps. He wanted to make it all himself, even to the sewing, and he couldn't sew for sour apples, as Nora very readily told him. Two small palm-leaf fans, fastened to an old cap of his father's so that they flopped with every movement, served as the elephant's ears, while out of an old brown coat sleeve Danny had fashioned what passed for an elephant's trunk. ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... nice man," explained Tess. "He lives in Graves' old place on the hill, an' he learns me new things out of books every day.... His sister's teachin' me to sew, too. I told ye she ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... leaving the head intact. Make a stuffing of two cupfuls of bread-crumbs, one cupful of butter, two eggs well beaten, and enough cold water to make a smooth paste. Season with pepper, salt, grated lemon, minced parsley, thyme, and marjoram. Split the fish, stuff, and sew up. Lay thin slices of salt pork over the fish and put into a baking-pan with a little boiling water seasoned with wine and tomato juice. Bake carefully, basting frequently. The gravy may be thickened and served ...
— How to Cook Fish • Olive Green
... there was once an emperor, very fond of new clothes. And to him came two tailors, who promised to make him some extraordinary clothes. The emperor engages them and they begin to sew at them, but they explain that the clothes have the extraordinary property of remaining invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position. The courtiers come to look at the tailors' work and see nothing, ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... good-natured and adoring—was all acquiescence, and by the time Norah was eleven she knew more of cooking and general housekeeping than many girls grown up and fancying themselves ready to undertake houses of their own. Moreover, she could sew rather well, though she frankly detested the accomplishment. The one form of work she cared for was knitting, and it was her boast that her father wore only the socks she manufactured ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... lay their shawls on the warm sand, and, spreading out their hair to dry, they doze in the sun, in such coils and masses as the unconscious figure lends itself to. When they rise from their beds, they sit in the shelter of the cliff and knit or sew, while one of them reads aloud, and another stands watch to announce the coming of the seals, which frequent a reef near the shore in great numbers. It has been said at rival points on the coast that the ladies linger there in despair of ever being able to remount to the hotel. A young ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... He can use them almost as handily as you can your hands. You should see Billy sew, and write and do other things. Why, they say he writes the best foot ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... surveillance that is ever so intolerable to the proud and delicate-minded, and those suggestions that, however well intended, had been so irritating to me from such a source. She no longer urged me to read, or sew, or eat, or take exercise; but, retiring into her own work (whence she could observe me at her pleasure, for her door was always set wide open, and her face turned in my direction), she employed or feigned to employ herself in her inexhaustible stocking-basket or scollop-work, either one the ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... they couldn't eat for thinking about the boy. The longer they chewed upon the food, the bigger and dryer it got in their mouths. And swallowing it was clear out of the question. Then they went into the sitting room for the evening. He picked up the evening paper to read, and she sat down to sew. Well, his eyes weren't very good. He wore glasses. And this evening he couldn't seem to see distinctly—the glasses seemed blurred. It must have been the glasses, of course. So he took them off and cleaned them very deliberately ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... usual fashion. As a general retires to a hill-top to organize his forces and issue orders to his subordinates, so Jimmy hung upon his front fence and conducted the affairs of the town. He knew what time each farmer came in, where the "Helping Hands" were going to sew, where the doctor was, and where the services would be held next Sunday. He was coroner, wharf-master, undertaker, and notary, and the only thing in the heavens above or the earth below concerning which he did not attempt ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... visions of gloom and despair Float over my mind serene, As I thy performance compare To the old-fashioned stitch, The dread sorrows which Accompanied work by the fingers Of those forced to sew 'Midst a life full of woe. With pity ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... and the subject was dropped. I noticed his wife looking anxiously at me, and just as I was about to leave the room she said: "Mr. Hawes, you'll please pardon me for mentionin' it, but there's a button off your coat, and I'll be glad to sew it on if you will be so kind as to leave it ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... pleasure to put the house in its most shining order, to plan daily little special dishes, lest he come upon her unawares; to sit and sew upon her clothing, shifting and turning her patchwork materials until she had worked out clever combinations which conveyed small ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... departure. I then presented to them the people I brought, viz. the tailor, smith, and the two carpenters; but my Jack-of-all-trades was the most acceptable present I could make them. My tailor fell immediately to work, and made every one of them a shirt; after which, he learned the women how to sew and stitch, thereby to become the more helpful to their husbands. Neither were the carpenters less useful, taking in pieces their clumsy things; instead of which they made convenient and handsome tables, stools, bedsteads, cupboards, lockers, and shelves. But when I carried them to see Will ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... to make the days of waiting pass more quickly, she tried to serve herself in ways that scandalized the proud affection of Maddalena. It was not fit for the signorina to make her bed or sweep her room; she might sew and knit if she would; but these other things were for servants like herself. She continued in the faith of Clementina's gentility, and saw her always as she had seen her first in the brief hour of her social splendor in Florence. Clementina tried to make her understand how she lived at Middlemount, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... which always follow in the wake of luxury and debauchery. Effemination makes its appearance early in life. The young boy likes the society of girls; he plays with dolls, and, if permitted, will don female attire and dress his hair like a girl. He learns to sew, to knit, to embroider, to do "tatting." He becomes a connoisseur in female dress, and likes to discuss matters pertaining to the toilet of females. He does not care for boyish sports, and when he grows older, takes no pleasure in the amusements and pursuits of his masculine acquaintances. He prefers ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... you please, sir; I throw down my work because I have fought my fight and conquered it, am mistress of what I will in my household craft. Think you that I love the molding of butter and the care of poultry, or to spin, to cut, to sew, because I do them and do them well? It is not the thing I love, Will—it is in the victory I find the joy. I would conquer them to feel my power. Conquer your book, Will, stride ahead of your class, then play your fill till they arrive abreast of you again. But a laggard, ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... will know you when he sees you. You must buy yourself a fur for the journey, and fur boots which must come above your knees, and be lined with leather. If you can't find any large enough for your great legs, godfather Kuerschner must, during the night, sew a skin over your feet. Greet Mr. Wohlfart from me. Your ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... men, perceiving that I was so fixed in my resolution, took a sheep, killed it, and after they had taken off the skin, presented me with a knife, telling me it would be useful to me on an occasion, which they would soon explain. "We must sew you in this skin," said they, "and then leave you; upon which a bird of monstrous size, called a roc, will appear in the air, and, taking you for a sheep, will pounce upon you, and soar with you to the sky. But let not that alarm you; he will descend with you again, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... supply. The water-skins were extremely defective, leaking freely, the only exception being the india-rubber bags with which the sailors had been supplied. Every effort was made during the halt to sew up holes and stop leaks, but with poor success. Each man carried on his camel one of these skins in addition to his water-bottle. Strict orders were given that upon the march he was to rely upon the latter alone; the supply ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... middle 'nineties, before social life in Richmond had become both complicated and expensive, it was still possible for a girl in Gabriella's position—provided, of course, she came of a "good family"—to sew all day over the plain sewing of her relatives, and in the evening to reign as the acknowledged belle of a ball. "Society," it is true, did not reach any longer, except in the historic sense, to Hill Street; but the inhabitants of Hill Street, if they were young and energetic, not infrequently made ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... round the homestead hill: While the fairest sat at home, Margaret like a queen, Like a blush-rose, like the moon In her heavenly sheen, Fragrant-breathed as milky cow Or field of blossoming bean, Graceful as an ivy bough Born to cling and lean; Thus she sat to sing and sew. ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... if he does not obtain socks, which the female Gypsies in Moldavia and Wallachia knit with wooden needles for the feet, he winds rags about them, which are laid aside in summer. He is not better furnished with linen, as the women neither spin, sew, nor wash. But this inattention is not from indifference about dress; on the contrary, they are particularly fond of clothes, which have been worn by people of distinction. The following, which appeared in the Imperial ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... the matter over, and it occurs to me that I have an old pair of dress trousers that might serve your turn; that is to say, if you could manage to unpick the red stripe off your old ones and get someone to sew it on. They are black, to be sure; but the difference between black and dark blue is not so very noticeable. And the cut of them inclines to the peg-top, that being the fashionable shape when I bought them—let me see—in fifty-seven, ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... but most people who have plenty to do like it very much. Michael Hale's public room was a good large one, and as soon as the day's work was over, and supper eaten, he set everybody to doing something or other. The girls had always plenty to do to spin and knit and sew. The boys, too, learned to knit, so that they could knit their own stockings. There was a hand-loom weaver among the settlers, and from him David learned to weave what his sisters spun. From this time, except a little calico, there ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... in an "evangelical" set belief sits lightly on both men and women. Certainly it has nothing to do with the way they spend Sunday, and if they go to church in the morning they are as likely as not to go to the theatre in the afternoon. They sew, they dance, they fiddle, they act, they travel on the day of rest, more on that day than on any other, and when they come to England there is nothing in our national life they find so tedious and unprofitable ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... is it? And then you profess to think that we ought to be all housewives and cooks, and knitters of stockings, and sewers-on of our husbands' buttons; but what if we have no husbands, no buttons to sew? And is it not a little selfish, my dear male sycophant, to wish to keep us all to yourself? to attend upon the wants of the lords of creation, who often distinguish themselves so much in the domain ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... a luxury," he said. "The more we stuff into people the more they want, and the less they take the sooner they forget they're sick. As your doctor, from this time on, I shall be delighted to set your broken bones, sew up your gashes, and all that sort of thing, but it is precious little medicine I'll give to you. So don't get sick. The only epidemic we can have here, according to my judgment, is an epidemic of good health. ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... you just eat your tea an' run in to Mis' Brownleigh, an' I'll get my hood an' run over to tell your folks you've come to stay all night over here. Then you'll have a cozy evenin' readin' while I sew, an' you can sleep late come mornin', and go back when you're ready. Nobody can't touch you over here. I'm not lettin' in people by night 'thout I know 'em," and she winked knowingly at the girl ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... nothing wrong to it. You may trust me for that, Christina. I was fairly worn out, and Aunt hasn't a morsel of pity. She thinks I ought to be glad to sew from Monday morning to Saturday night, and I tell you it hurts me, and gives me a cough, and I had to get a breath of sea-air or die for it. So a friend ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... be happy to help you with your new flag if I am able. Will you kindly send the old one and the stuff down by my brother, who is coming to see me on Saturday. He is working at Rotten Gully, and his name is Ned. I do not know if I sew well enough to please you, but I ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... bush, so that nobody else could approach her. One evening he forgot himself in Hoeflinger's presence. Spiele had teased him about his red necktie, which began to look black with wear; she asked whether he would always stay a Garibaldi and offered to sew a new one for him, if he would let her remove the old. He agreed; nobody noticed the glow and the tension in his eyes. When she had unfastened the little red rag and was running away with it laughing, he quickly grabbed her hand and caught it between his crooked horse-teeth. Spiele cried ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... this blamed mule has kicked old Jude, and I must have somebody to hold the edges together while I sew it up. Mammy's hands aren't steady enough. Now press the edges together and never mind the blood on your hands. Hold the halter, Mammy. You get that can of lime ready to dust it, Byrd." Thus in dirty, blood-stained overalls, with his ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... with him or I wouldn't have seen him flying ahead on his snow shoes. But come, Will, I've promised to teach you how to sew buckskin with tendons and sinews, and I'm going to see that you ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the Doctor said to her: "Let her alone for the present, my dear; she has had a great shock. Trust to nature. This cannot last long with a girl like Katy. It is half of it over-fatigue, carried on from her school-keeping to add to the present account." To me he said: "Katy, you may sew, if you like, but not in-doors, I will carry your basket out for you into the arbor; and in the afternoon I am going to take you to ride ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... at a given signal and the hostess allows a certain length of time for the dressmaking. There is much merriment, as it is nearly as awkward for the ladies to sew without a thimble as it is for the men to ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... no outlet. Sara couldn't understand—she is so practical. When I go to her with some beautiful thought I have found in a book or poem she is quite likely to say, "Yes, yes, but I noticed this morning that the braid was loose on your skirt, Beatrice. Better go and sew it on before you forget again. 'A stitch ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was a pleasing fiction to the fond mind of the aging man that she would return, soon, to-morrow. O'Naka acquiesced in the useless expense and change in her habits. She always acquiesced; yet her own idea would have been to make a good housekeeper of O'Iwa—like herself, to sew, cook, wash, clean—a second O'Mino. She could not understand the new turn of Matazaemon's mind. As for O'Iwa, she grew to girlhood in the Hosokawa House, learned all the accomplishments of her own house and what the larger ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... the food and cook the fruits in their season. Among their principal occupations is that of making rush mats, baskets for gathering roots, and hats very ingeniously wrought. As they want little clothing, they do not sew much, and the men have the needle ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... the instinct which enables her to care for her baby equally as well as the cat cares for her kitten. She must be educated or taught to care for it. She can then care for it better than the cat cares for the kitten, and she can be taught to bake, to sew, to read; to play on the piano, which a cat cannot be taught. So while a baby may be the most helpless living thing at one stage of its career it has in it—in the faculty of reasoning—the ability to become the Lord of all ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... always improved the opportunity to inspect any strange craft that visited the bay. "But, John, we must be off early on Monday morning, and the jib of the Blowout, as you call her, wants mending. We will go down and sew ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... buy bed or mattresses at the post trader's; but yer can buy ticking, and we can sew it up for yer, and the men will stuff with straw. There's plenty of straw," said one of the kindly women, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... we say?" said Hun Rhavas with remarkable want of enthusiasm; "kind sirs, is there no one ready to say fifteen? The girl might be taught to sew or to trim a lady's nails. She may be unskilled now but she might learn—providing that her health be good," he ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... thought very bad style to have wives and women. They have them, just as we have Voltaire and Rousseau; but who ever opens his Voltaire or his Rousseau? Nobody. But, for all that, the highest style is to be jealous. They sew a woman up in a sack and fling her into the water on the slightest suspicion,—that's according ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... a red, woolen rose had come loose on Rose's left shoe, and Barefoot had just knelt down to sew it on carefully, when Rose said, half ashamed of her own behavior, and yet ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... said the only way for women to get their rights is to take them. If necessary let there be a domestic insurrection. Let young women refuse to marry, and married women refuse to sew on buttons, cook, and rock the cradle until their liege-lords acknowledge the rights they are entitled to. There were more ways than one to conquer a man; and women, like the strikers in the railroad riots, should carry their demands all ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Jarrum, with a taking air of candour. "Those evil reports come from our enemies. There's another tribe living in the Great Salt Lake City besides ours; and that's the Gentiles. Gentiles is our name for 'em. It's this set that spreads about uncredible reports, and we'd like to sew their mouths up—" ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... following singular expedient for averting the danger. "You should take on board with you several skins of oxen, and, if the wind rises and threatens the vessel with danger, all who wish to escape envelope themselves each in a skin, sew up this skin so as to make it as far as possible water-tight, then throw themselves into the sea, and flocks of the great eagles called griffins, thinking that they are really oxen, will descend and bear them on their wings to some mountain or valley, there to devour their prey. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... a wrong one," said the Angel, "I suppose that, according to your law, I could not sew her up in a sack and place it ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... sooms na aye in silk or satin, Flaunting like a modern belle; Her robe and plaid 's the simple tartan, Sweet and modest like hersel'. The shapely robe adorns her person That her eident hand wad sew; The plaid sae graceful flung around her, 'Twas ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... always looked forward to placing his idol in a befitting shrine; and means for this were now furnished to him. The dress, the comforts, the position he had desired for Sylvia were all hers. She did not need to do a stroke of household work if she preferred to 'sit in her parlour and sew up a seam'. Indeed Phoebe resented any interference in the domestic labour, which she had performed so long, that she looked upon the kitchen as a private empire of her own. 'Mrs Hepburn' (as Sylvia was now termed) had a good dark silk gown-piece ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... sailors stared at the bead of Indian gold which Mordacks pulled out of his pocket. Buttons are a subject for nautical contempt and condemnation; perhaps because there is nobody to sew them on at sea; while ear-rings, being altogether useless, are held in ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... dark that Mr Kerr could not see to sew, so on fine days he worked on deck. Sitting beside him he taught me how to hold a needle, for he said every man should be able to make small repairs. He advised me to seize every opportunity to learn. When a boy he could ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... decidedly. "For my part, I couldn't eat, or sew, or do any thing with that great hulking girl sitting starting opposite, or standing; for how could we ask her to sit with us? Already, what must she have thought of us—people who take ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... grated cheese, three yolks of egg, salt, pepper and, if desired, just a taste of nutmeg. Finally mix also one or two slices of ham and tongue, cut in small pieces. Stuff the boned chicken with this filling, sew up the opening, wrap it tightly in a cloth and put to cook in water on a low fire. When taken from the water, remove the wrapping and brown it, first with butter, then in a sauce made in the following way: Break all the ...
— The Italian Cook Book - The Art of Eating Well • Maria Gentile
... blood clots, wash, stuff and sew. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, roll in flour and brown richly in hot dripping. Place in Dutch oven or in one of the small vessels in fireless cooker. Half cover with boiling water, surround with six slices carrot, one stalk celery, broken in pieces, one onion sliced, two sprays parsley, ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... find employment in this gigantic establishment. Of these about three hundred are girls, and twenty or thirty boys. The girls feed the presses, sew the books, apply gold-leaf to the covers ready for tooling, etc. About a dozen little girls are employed in the press-room in laying the sheets, of the best description of Bibles, between glazed boards, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... moment from her pinnings and speaking more gravely. "My father died then, and I went to work. I hadn't time to sew after that—I bought ready-made things. So when I was married—that was a long seven years afterwards—I did have such lovely times buying organdies and laces and things and cutting them out and making them! That was the summer Allan was ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... accomplish. "Willingly. I am glad to have you attempt something of the kind. I have always maintained that boys should be taught to work with their hands. Every youth ought to learn the use of tools, just as a girl learns to sew, to cook, and help her mother in household duties. Then we should not have so many awkward, stupid, bungling fellows, who can not do anything for themselves. It is as disgraceful for a lad not to be able to drive a nail straight without pounding ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... for Jenette, down deep in my heart, I did; but I didn't tell her so; no, she wouldn't have liked it; she kep a brave face to the world. And as I said, her comin' wuz looked for weeks and weeks ahead, in any home where she wuz engaged to sew ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... training. The latter has been established for females, of whom he employs a great many. This class of girls generally go to the mills without any knowledge of household duties; they are taught in the schools to sew, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... how could Uncle Ritchie lose his heart? did they shoot a hole so it might drop out?" queried Rosebud in wide-eyed wonder. "I hope the doctors will sew up the place quick 'fore it does fall out," she added, with a look of deep concern. "Poor, dear Uncle Wal is killed," she sobbed; "and Uncle Art too, and I don't want all my uncles to die ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... in," he said. "And not having a proper coat. That sort of social skill is the suit of armor those people wear. I've got to go back to my room and sew up the rip Ben told me about and trim my cuffs and try to tie my necktie so that the worn-out spots won't show-and make ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... udders of sows that are ready to pig, that so they may crush into one mass (O Piacular Jupiter!) in the very pangs of delivery, blood, milk, and the corruption of the mashed and mangled young ones, and so eat the most inflamed part of the animal; others sew up the eyes of cranes and swans, and so shut them up in darkness to be fattened, and then souse up their flesh with ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... for publishers, who think of nothing but setting the nation by the ears, and putting money in their pockets. If she be good at working a shirt, heavens! but she will be a blessing to the man who weds her, for our fashionable damsels can neither knit nor sew, and seem fit only for putting carefully away in glass cases." Captain Luke listened to the delivery of this speech with dogged silence. In truth, he harbored a suspicion that military men were a little too free with their courtesies to other men's wives, and that ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... years old her education properly begins and she is systematically inducted into the mysteries of housekeeping. At fifteen she has completed her curriculum and can cook, bake, sew, dye, spin and weave and is, indeed, graduated in all the accomplishments of the finished Moqui maiden. She now does up her hair in two large coils or whorls, one on each side of the head, which is meant to resemble a full-blown squash blossom ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... pleasantest voice. Donee was not at all afraid. "I can sew. I can make baskets," she said. "I am going to make a basket for every ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... he whispered, as he searched for and drew out his knife. "I will rip it down the seam, and we will sew it up again some time." And then muttering to himself, "Scraped! It's a bad wound! We must get the bullet out. No—no bullet here." And then, making use of the little knowledge he had picked up, Punch tore off strips of cotton from his own ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... Latin word or phrase from his reading of learned authors, or, more often, from the conversations of his learned friends; and then he will take some astrological or alchemical expression of AGRIPPA, or PARACELSUS, or some such outlaw, and will, as with his awl and rosin-end, sew together a sentence, and hammer together a page of the most incongruous and unheard- of phraseology, till, as we read Behmen's earlier work especially, we continually exclaim, O for a chapter of John Bunyan's clear, ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... in raiment fair, Wondrous to see on deserts bare. Neither they spin nor weave nor sew Yet no king could such beauty ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... show you on this. But see the sweat-band? It has a lot of needle holes in it, and the trimmer has to stitch through those holes and then sew the band on to the hat, and all the odds and ends. It kills eyes. What do you think?" she went on. "The girls used to drink beer—bosses let 'em do it to keep them stimulated—and it's ruined ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... thousands of yards of cut and buttonholed linen which seemed to have been the solace and delight of our grandmothers when they allowed themselves to be torn away from their beloved Berlin-wool work. To sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam appears to have been the amusement of the properly constituted women of the early ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... sent Amy to school. When she returned each afternoon, she helped in the garden and in the kitchen as much as her years would permit; for Mrs. Linden wished to train her to a useful, industrious life. Often, when the opportunity offered, she taught her to sew and knit and care for the house, something she thought that every girl should learn. Under the guidance of such a kind, loving woman, Amy grew to girlhood, simple ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... and she should be thrown on her own slender resources? She is driven, to seek employment of some kind,—to attend in a shop, (for somehow that is considered rather more genteel than, most other occupations,) or to sew, or to fold books, or do something else. But she knows nothing of these several arts; and employers want skilled labor, not novices. She once boasted that she had never been obliged to work, and now she realizes how much such absurd boasting is worth. What then? Why, greater privation and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... Eliza to the bridge while the light is good; she wants to snap-shoot it. I'm going to sew on buttons ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... the Greek lessons, it was not easy for her to be positively rude to any one, but she promised herself a good deal of passive resistance on that side. For if nothing else was possible, she could always sew and knit for the soldiers. Pamela was not very good at either, but they did something to lessen the moral ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... take her dollars home with her, watching to right and left, expecting every instant that some one would try to rob her; and when she got home she was not much better off. Until she could find another bank there was nothing to do but sew them up in her clothes, and so Marija went about for a week or more, loaded down with bullion, and afraid to cross the street in front of the house, because Jurgis told her she would sink out of sight in the mud. Weighted ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the cheeks of the mouse. Not that this helped her much, it merely widened the mouth of the mouse, and her prey after all escaped the cat.[173] After her happy escape, the mouse betook herself to Noah and said to him, "O pious man, be good enough to sew up my cheek where my enemy, the cat, has torn a rent in it." Noah bade her fetch a hair out of the tail of the swine, and with this he repaired the damage. Thence the little seam-like line next to the mouth of every mouse to this ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... that they seemed cruel, they were so white and regular— and cruel. The cruelty was evident to him as she bit in two the thread for the waistcoat she was mending, and then plied her needle again. Also the needle in her fingers might have been intended to sew up his shroud, so angry did it appear at the moment. But her teeth had something almost savage about them. If he had seen them when she was smiling, he would have thought them merely beautiful and rare, atoning for her plain face and flat breast—not so flat as it had been; for since the child ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... making comical salaams each time I, after the custom of the country, threw something at him to induce him to go away. On the seventh day I caught him and shook him by the ears, explaining that if the clothes were not ready before nightfall, I would, in default of other tailors, sew them myself. ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... oughta sew spangles on your shirt and wear ear-rings and git you a fortune-tellin' wagon. You're right about everything except that that horse never was beat while he owned him and he win about twenty thousand dollars ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... Janeiro, the quilts made by the women were sold for a guinea each, which gave them money to obtain shelter on landing, till they could get into service or find respectable means of subsistence. The children were taught to knit, and sew, and read; the schoolmistress and monitors being themselves chosen from the convicts, with guarantee of ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... river, and when I'm bigger, I'll hunt. I'll be able also to cut firewood to sell or to present to the owner of the cows, and so he'll be satisfied with us. When I'm able to plow, I'll ask him to let me have a piece of land to plant in sugar-cane or corn and you won't have to sew until midnight. We'll have new clothes for every fiesta, we'll eat meat and big fish, we'll live free, seeing each other every day and eating together. Old Tasio says that Crispin has a good head and so we'll send him to Manila to study. I'll support ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... them. The rent is no more when she is at home. The two dollars and a half a week which she pays into the family fund more than covers the cost of her actual food, and at night she can often contribute toward the family labor by helping her mother wash and sew. ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... I wanted something to occupy myself with. It's no fun for me to sit still in my house and watch everybody else work. The butler orders the meals, the housekeeper takes charge of the linen, the footman the carriages. Why, I can't find a button to sew on anything any more. I ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... wait for me. I'll come round here at half-past two, and go with you. I want to see the young lady. They'll let me come into the school and learn to sew, won't they?" ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... the nursery machinery. For Max was sitting in one corner pretending to read, and Dolly was sitting in another corner—the two furthest-off-from-each-other corners they could possibly find—pretending to sew, and on both little faces the expression was one which mammas are always very sorry ...
— The Thirteen Little Black Pigs - and Other Stories • Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth
... that it vill be all for ze Church," she has said to me. And the priest has taught her all she knows, how to sew and embroider, and cook and read, though he never lets her read anything but works on religion. Religion, always religion! He has brought her up like a nun, crushed the life out of her. Until I found her out, found my jewel out. It is Tennyson who says that. But his "Maud" ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... to Northern Michigan and became pioneers. For toys she received at Christmas a small saw and an axe. These were typical of the life she was to lead for a number of years. Unlike many girls of her age, she had no time to play with dolls or sew; she was forced to do a man's work in helping with ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... Their domestic rhythm keep, As with steady sweep they go Through the gently yielding dough. Maids may vaunt their finer charms— Naught to me like Dinah's arms; Girls may draw, or paint, or sew— ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... dwarf prayed Thor to catch him, and he did so. The dwarf now proceeded to cut off his head, but Loki objected that he was to have the head only, and not the neck. As he would not be quiet, the dwarf took a knife and a thong, and began to sew his mouth up; but the knife was bad, so the dwarf wished that he had his brother's awl, and as soon as he wished it, it was there. So he sewed ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... they call me La Pucelle, or the Maid of France. But you were right, I am a shepherdess, too. I have kept my father's sheep in the fields down there, and spun from the distaff while I watched them. I knew how to sew and spin as well as any girl in the Barrois or Lorraine. Will you not stand up ...
— The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France • Henry Van Dyke
... have de white tarleton Swiss dress for dances and Sunday. Dem purty good clothes, too and dey make at home. Us knowed how to sew and one de old man's gals, she try teach me readin' and writin'. I didn't have no sense, though, and I cry to go out ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... poor (yet the poorest think themselves too good to Marry with the best Spaniard), which endeared him to them exceedingly. Otherwise it is death for any Stranger to visit these Caves and Bodies. The Corps are sew'd up in Goatskins with Thongs of the same, with very great curiosity, particularly in the incomparable exactness and evenness of the Seams; and the skins are made close and fit to the Corps, which for the most part are entire, the Eyes clos'd, Hair on their heads, Ears, ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... has all her clothes made and keeps a maid to sew on her buttons, I think it is very nice of you to learn girls how to sew. You must be a great help ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... this clumsy thing, and give you a little blue dress with white flowers on it." She made the change, and after she had fastened it in the back she got a needle and white thread and bade me stand closer to her so that she might sew up the tear which exposed my knees. She asked why I looked so hard at ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... rather a fellowship than a tribe; rather a residuum than a fellowship. It was all the riffraff of the universe, having for their trade a crime. It was a sort of harlequin people, all composed of rags. To recruit a man was to sew on a tatter. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... might just as well have said she must go to Europe, for Mrs. Holmes had no dear old home in the country waiting to welcome her; no uncles, aunts and cousins, writing "When will you come?" So she sat through the long afternoon and tried to sew as well as she could with the heat, and the flies, and her ...
— Sunshine Factory • Pansy
... you, miss, remember your place in my house. Go, look to your duties. Sweep, wash, cook, sew. Those are the things your sex is made for. What interest have you, dare you have, in that brainless boy? Let him fight his own battles. It may make a man of him; though I doubt it. He is nothing ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... example," he says, "can occupy herself for a time in a national factory, and at another time make dresses for private customers at home, then again she can sew for another customer in her own house, and finally she may, with a few comrades, unite in a cooeperative for the manufacture ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... Thayne came, her face expressing a calm she did not feel. "Mr. Fisher thinks there is no cause for us to worry," she remarked placidly. "He is going to take what he calls a 'turn about the town.' Frances, suppose you go on reading to Win while I sew a little." ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... some young needlewomen to sew my shirts, had expected that I would fall in love with one and not with all, but my amorous zeal overstepped her hopes, and all the pretty ones had their turn; they were all well satisfied with me, and the sempstress was rewarded ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... modern sewing machine. This is one of the most valuable labor-saving machines for the binder ever invented, as it almost, if not entirely, supersedes hand sewing on what is called edition work. This machine will sew from 15,000 to 18,000 signatures a day, and do it better than it can be done by hand. Each signature is sewed independently and with from two to five stitches, so that if one breaks the signature is held fast by the others, while in hand sewing the thread goes through ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... maiden charged with golden ew'r, And with an argent laver, pouring first Pure water on their hands, supplied them next With a bright table, which the maiden, chief In office, furnish'd plenteously with bread And dainties, remnants of the last regale. Then came the sew'r, who with delicious meats 70 Dish after dish, served them, and placed beside The chargers cups magnificent of gold, When Menelaus grasp'd their hands, and said. Eat and rejoice, and when ye shall have shared Our nuptial banquet, we will then inquire Who are ye both, for, certain, not from those ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... lonely she found it living by herself since her married sister, who used to live with her, had gone to the West. Since then, Miss Penstock had sometimes consented to go for a few days at a time to sew in the houses of her favorite employers, just to keep from forgetting how to speak,' the poor little woman said. But she disliked very much to do this. She was a gentlewoman; and though she accepted with simple dignity the necessity of earning her bread, it was bitterly disagreeable ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... she demanded, with a sudden flash of passion that thrilled him. "Look at the holes." She showed rips and worn-out places in the sleeves of her buckskin blouse, through which gleamed a round, brown arm. "I sew when I have anythin' to sew with.... Look at my skirt—a dirty rag. An' I have only one other to my name.... Look!" Again a color tinged her cheeks, most becoming, and giving the lie to her action. But shame ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... lady's too grand to cut out your dresses and help to sew them? And what does she do? I venture to say she's fit to teach nothing but devilment—not that she has taught you much, my dear—yet at least. I'll see her, my dear; where is she? Come, let us visit Madame. I should so like to talk to ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... the question as simply as if she were asking if she might sew on a button for him. It had the charm of an intimate fellowship of purpose. It appeared free of the least realization of the magnitude of her undertaking. Didn't Mrs. Galland believe that blood would tell? And hadn't ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... too short and some too long, Some too loose and some too tight; Grimy smudges on the white, And a tiny spot of red, Where poor Polly's finger bled. Strange such pretty, dainty blocks— Bits of Polly's summer frocks— Should have proved so hard to sew, And the cause of so ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... program of study was of the most elementary character. Religious instruction was given the first place and received so much attention that there was little time in school hours for anything else. The girls fared better than the boys on the whole, for the nuns taught them to sew and to knit as well as to read ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... (1) Norn, one of the Fates, stands here for women, whose business it was to sew the rings of iron upon the cloth which made these ring-mail coats or shirts. The needles, although some of them were of gold, appear to have been without eyes, and used like ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... vapor, a nauseous and putrid atmosphere, in a stifled and almost suffocating heat.... When any of the prisoners had died during the night, their bodies were brought to the upper deck in the morning and placed upon the gratings. If the deceased had owned a blanket, any prisoner might sew it around the corpse; and then it was lowered, with a rope tied round the middle, down the side of the ship into a boat. Some of the prisoners were allowed to go on shore under a guard to perform the labor of interment. In a bank near the Wallabout, a hole was excavated in the sand, in ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... could not possibly cut off the one without touching the other, so he bethought him of another plan. He would at any rate sew up the bragging lips that had caused so much trouble and told so many lies ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... proverb, 'Necessity is the mother of invention,'" I said. "And, besides, you have given me a new idea. I am going home to work it out. When it is finished, I will show it to you." Then I went home, and made rows and rows of strong pockets to sew on a folding screen I was making for my work-room.—Pansy, in Christian Endeavor World. By permission of Lothrop, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... she also commanded willing obedience. She arranged their work with fairness so that each had her share and each seemed free in doing that work to use her individual taste and judgment. She taught her children to spin and to sew, and she read to them. She told them about the guardian Angel who watched over them to keep them from harm. She was not anxious when they were out of sight, for even when Snow White and Rose Red stayed in the wood all night and slept on the leaves, she had no fear, for no accident ever happened ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... of the poem had been read she jumped up and cried, "Look at the Devil's needles. They're come to sew my eyes up for ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... A sailor stepped forward obediently. "Get your palm and needle and sew the beggar up. You'll find some old canvas in the sail-locker. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... read and write? Could she sew? Had she ever been in the city before?—till Christie's courage quite rose again. It ended in nothing, however, but a promise to let her know in a day or two what ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... the little girls from ten years old should attend and be taught to sew. Many a little dress was selected at headquarters for them to ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... you shut your eyes to the white tiles and the thermometer and the brass knobs and the shower-bath, it was a peaceful scene; and Steve, as he sat there and watched Mamie sew, was stirred by it. Remove the white tiles, the thermometer the brass knobs, and the shower-bath, and this was precisely the sort of scene his imagination conjured up when the business of life slackened sufficiently to allow him ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... no contemptible scholar, taught me Greek and Latin, as well as most of the languages of modern Europe. I assure you there has been some pains taken in my education, although I can neither sew a tucker, nor work cross-stitch, nor make a pudding, nor—as the vicar's fat wife, with as much truth as elegance, good-will, and politeness, was pleased to say in my behalf—do any other useful ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... with slightly uplifted eyebrows. "Nevertheless I think it is my duty to see that you are properly instructed in at least the rudiments of music. You sew, of course." ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... themselves in this way finally succeeded in organizing six hundred of the Italian women in our immediate vicinity, who had finished garments at home for the most wretched and precarious wages. To be sure, the most ignorant women only knew that "you couldn't get clothes to sew" from the places where they paid the best, unless "you had a card," but through the veins of most of them there pulsed the quickened blood of a new fellowship, a sense of comfort and aid which had been laid out to them ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams |
