"Sew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... household is, I own, Yet must I see to it. No maid we keep, And I must cook, sew, knit, and sweep, Still early on my feet and late; My mother is in all things, great and small, So accurate! Not that for thrift there is such pressing need, Than others we might make more show indeed; My father left behind a small estate, A ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... replied they; "the conditions are too difficult. For six long years you must neither speak nor laugh, and during that time you must sew together for us six little shirts of star-flowers, and should there fall a single word from your lips, then all your labor will be in vain." Just as the brothers finished speaking, the quarter of an hour elapsed, and they all flew out of ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... big for its skin, so the old skin splits for the growing body, and out comes young caterpillar in a clean, new dress—a very easy way for Mrs. Butterfly to have her babies get new clothes. Don't you think it is, Mrs. Reece?—no hems to stitch, no buttons to sew on, no darning. The only things their mothers ever do for them is to start them with ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... of the first thread, into bunches of entanglement more hopelessly perverse than the Gordian knot, or the snarls in a child's hair. To the inexperienced victim, desirous of securing the wherewithal to sew a button on, nothing seems easier than to pull a thread out of the bunch of loose filament that lies before him. Rash man! That simple mesh hat a baffling power like unto the Labyrinth of Arsino, and long labor of fingers ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... stopped him pretty quickly, and bade him sew up his mouth until he came to his sober senses again. Oh, they make great simpletons of themselves, some of these young fellows, when they get a little ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... queer customs in regard to death and funerals. Almost every Servian prepares boards with which to make his own coffin and keeps them in a dry place ready for use when he dies. Old women save up money and sew it in their dresses, to be used to pay their funeral expenses. If a farmer is able to afford it he generally keeps a barrel of whisky in his cellar, to be drunk ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... can make lots of money selling soft crabs. They get from sixty to seventy-five cents a dozen, and, oh, mother, if Bert and me could only have a net and a boat and a crab car, and roll up our pants like Nat Springer, we'd just bring you so much money that you needn't hardly sew at all!" and in his enthusiasm George's eyes sparkled, and he ruthlessly trampled upon every rule of grammar ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... all this happened on account of the red shoes, but the old lady thought they were horrible, and they were burnt. But Karen herself was cleanly and nicely dressed; she must learn to read and sew; and people said she was a nice little thing, but the looking-glass said: "Thou art more than nice, ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... envy, which would probably culminate in the demand that the goods be returned and exchanged for dirt-brown, when she reached home Nancy Ellen climbed from the wagon and told her father that she was going on to Adam's to have Agatha cut out her dress so that she could begin to sew on it that night. Such commendable industry met his hearty approval, so he told her to go and he would see that Kate did her share of the work. Wise Nancy Ellen came home and sat her down to sew on her gorgeous frock, while the storm she had feared raged in ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... men. There's none but Bembo here as belongs aft, so I've picked ye out as the best men for'ard to take counsel with, d'ye see, consarning the ship. The captain's anchor is pretty nigh atrip; I shouldn't wonder if he croaked afore morning. So what's to be done? If we have to sew him up, some of those pirates there for'ard may take it into their heads to run off with the ship, because there's no one at the tiller. Now, I've detarmined what's best to be done; but I don't want to do it unless I've good men ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the aperture. Having cleansed and washed them with palm wine, they cover them with pounded aromatics, and afterwards filling the cavity with powder of pure myrrh, cassia, and other fragrant substances, frankincense excepted, they sew it up again. This being done, they salt the body, keeping it in natron during seventy days, to which period they are strictly confined. When the seventy days are over, they wash the body, and wrap it up entirely in bands of fine linen smeared on the inner side with gum. The relatives then take ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... servant maid, Thy jeers at me why dost thou throw? Thou needst not fear or blame or sneer From me, however thou may'st sew. ...
— Hafbur and Signe - a ballad • Thomas J. Wise
... century, among enlightened people. There is hardly any kind of handiwork done in the kindergarten that was not done in the Mitchell family, and in other families of their acquaintance. The girls learned to sew and cook, just as they learned to read,—as a matter of habit rather than of instruction. They learned how to make their own clothes, by making their dolls' clothes,—and the dolls themselves were frequently home-made, the eldest sister ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... are the daughter of a peer. They never sew. You might be playing a piano, but there's hardly room on the stage for that, and, besides, it would interfere with my aside, which needs a hush to be made impressive. Where ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... to do something to show my gratitude, but could think of nothing except that, by and by, when we knew each other better, I might offer to sew on his buttons or ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... had been longing intolerably all day for evening to come, so that she could be alone with her husband, sat in the drawing-room, trying to sew with nervous, trembling fingers, while her husband, looking frightfully tired, and Bailey Girard smoked and talked—of all things in the world!—of the relative merits of live or "spoon" bait in trolling, and afterward went minutely ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... the mother of his child—of his happy little home of other days. Two articles, totally useless to Sam; the scissors could only be of service to a woman—the book to a lettered person. Sam could neither sew nor read. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... 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, ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... have found a soldier who can do the work; he is not a tailor, but he swears he can sew and patch, and he undertakes to ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... dies, straightway we sew him up, and overboard he goes; our world-frigate rushes by, and never more do we behold him again; though, sooner or later, the everlasting under-tow sweeps him toward ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... your mind?' she continued, and plucked both a white and red rose, saying: 'There! choose your colour by-and-by,' and ask Juley to sew the one you choose in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wise did our Lord proclaim the newness and completeness of His gospel. It was in no sense a patching up of Judaism. He had not come to mend old and torn garments; the cloth He provided was new, and to sew it on the old would be but to tear afresh the threadbare fabric and leave a more unsightly rent than at first. Or to change the figure, new wine could not safely be entrusted to old bottles. The bottles here referred to were really bags, made of the skins of animals, and of course they deteriorated ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... a seam that no sophistry can sew up. Here is a society organized, not on an idea of equal rights, and of inequalities only as they spring from difference of worth, but on an idea of permanent, political, organized inequality among men. They carry it so far that the theory of Slave law regards the slave not ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... daies stode, It were thanne litel nede Among the men to taken hiede Of that thei hieren Pseudo telle, Which nou is come forto duelle, 1880 To sowe cokkel with the corn, So that the tilthe is nyh forlorn, Which Crist sew ferst his oghne hond. Nou stant the cockel in the lond, Wher stod whilom the goode grein, For the Prelatz nou, as men sein, Forslowthen that thei scholden tile. And that I trowe be the skile, Whan ther is lacke in hem above, The poeple ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... horrible! (Begins to sew, then lays her hand down on the table, then begins to sew again.) And what happens ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... be. None of us are, Tom. I wonder at you more than I do at Dan, for you have had more advantages. As for me, I am only a girl; there's nothing for girls but to sit and sew, and prepare meals for men to eat, and wait until some one comes and chooses to marry them. Then they go off and do the same ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... one day is an account of all. In the morning, from nine o'clock till half-past twelve, I instruct my sisters, and draw; then we walk till dinner-time. After dinner I sew till tea-time, and after tea I either write, read, or do a little fancy-work, or draw, as I please. Thus, in one delightful, though somewhat monotonous course, my life is passed. I have been only out twice to tea since I came home. We are expecting ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... shoe has an upper, and Mr. P.'s motto is, "Upper and still up." In fact, he is so well satisfied with his understanding, that he would not stand in any other man's shoes for any consideration; and so long as the CRISPINS will make him fits which are not convulsions, and will sew in a way which shall produce no crop of corns, and remind him, by the neatness of their work, of Lovely PEGGY, it is the intention of the Senor PUNCHINELLO to patronize the Native American ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... red rush-bottomed chair and a table stood at one end,—two little pieces of furniture around which cluster the pleasantest memories of my life,—Lillie's chair and Lillie's table, where she sat to sew and sing among her animals. What happy mornings I spent there by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... for her to go away and earn a living; she who had never had a day of illness in her life; she who could sew, knit, spin, weave, and cook. She could make enough money in Biddeford or Portsmouth to support herself, and Patty, too, until the proper work was found for both. But there would be a truly terrible conflict of wills, and such fierce arraignment ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was hoping you wouldn't come. I suppose you never have things to do, but I am a very busy little girl. I help mother, and practice my music, and she is teaching me to sew and cook. Of course we have cooking at school but no one can cook like mother, and I want to be just like her. I told her about you last night, and she said you could borrow her whenever ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... charming, and swarms with palaces and parks. If it hadn't been woods I was after I would have explored it with great interest. Do you remember when you read Carlyle's Frederick to me that winter you were trying to persuade me to learn to sew? And, bribing me to sew, you read aloud? I didn't learn to sew, but I did learn a great deal about Potsdam and Hohenzollerns, and some Sunday when it isn't quite so fine I shall go down and visit Sans Souci, and ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... were red with shyness and modesty. She did not please me very much at first sight; I looked at her with prejudice. Chvabrine had described Marya, the Commandant's daughter, to me as being rather silly. She went and sat down in a corner, and began to sew. Still the "chtchi"[40] had been brought in. Vassilissa Igorofna, not seeing her husband come back, sent Palashka for the second time ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... veranda embroidering, and this interested Marjorie, for all the girls she knew of her own age liked to run and play better than to sit and sew. ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... and admiral who put an end to the Peloponnesian War by defeat of the Athenian fleet off AEgospotami, and of whom Plutarch says in characterisation of him, he knew how to sew the skin of the fox on that of the lion; fell in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... how to do everything," Pee-wee told her; "because suppose a scout is alone in the woods; he has to cook his dinner, doesn't he? He has to know how to do everything for himself, see? That's why I'll sew this jacket myself. That's what you call resourcefulness. A scout has to be full of ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... you couldn't be a proper nurse without your glasses. How could you read the newspaper or your prayer-book, or sew on the buttons? It is a pity your nose is so wide at the top, and your eyes go so far round the corners, but it can't be helped. I'm afraid I shall ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... ask her no questions. She chatted pleasantly to them, and they thought she was quite her old self. They wondered to see Tommy still so sad-eyed. To Ailie she spoke freely of her illness, though not of what had occasioned it, and told her almost gleefully that David had promised to let her sew a little next week. There was one thing only that surprised Ailie. Grizel had said that as soon as she was a little stronger she was ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... mind that!" laughed Raggedy Andy. "Marcella will sew it on in the morning and I will be all ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... her, and that she would find it difficult to supply him with clothes. She answered, "I leave the care of that to Him who clothes the fields with grass and the trees with leaves. He has given me fingers to sew and spin, and they shall work to clothe my poor little orphan. I ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... since I left my village home (soft chords) I have labored somewhat, and I confess that I have frankly looked forward to matrimony as a sort of glorified vacation. I couldn't ever give up my work, of course,—it wouldn't give me up—and I don't crave to "sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam and live upon strawberries, sugar and cream" exclusively, but somewhere in the middle ground between that and washing dishes and "feeding the swine," I did visualize a sort of gracious lady leisure, with a vague, worshipful being in the background making me "take ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... for you to go to sleep," said her mother, kissing her eyes and cheeks. "I'll be through my work directly and then you shall sit in my lap and rest — I don't want to sew to-night. Winnie, the good Shepherd will gather my little lamb with his arm and carry her in his bosom, if she minds his voice; and then he will bring her by and by where she shall walk with him in white, and there will be no spots on the white ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... out my shame, Eyes burning dry and my heart like a flame; For I hate you then—I hate you, Jim of Tellico, And grip my needle tighter, every stitch a sin, The hate growing bigger till the thing I sew Seems a shroud I'm glad a-making just ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... shop with thirty cents as a woman's wage is that; the overcrowding that goes hand in hand with home-work is that; the scourge of consumption which doctors and Boards of Health wrestle with in vain while dying men and women "sew on coats with their last gasp" and sew the death warrant of the buyer into the lining, is a threat the gravity of which we have hardly yet made out. Courts and constitutions reflect the depth of public ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... observ'd, beasts, that converse 790 With man, take after him, as hogs Get pigs all the year, and bitches dogs. Just so, by our example, cattle Learn to give one another battle. We read, in NERO's time, the heathen, 795 When they destroy'd the Christian brethren, Did sew them in the skins of bears, And then set dogs about their ears: From thence, no doubt, th' invention came Of ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... Luther Barr's craft. After an excellent dinner, in which fresh meat and vegetables from a well-stocked ice-box formed the staples, they watched with interest the red-headed sailor, Wells, scramble up into the network of the bag and sew a patch over the bullet hole made by Ben Stubbs' shot. The patch affixed, it was coated with a water and gas-proof solution the sailor carried in a small pot suspended round his waist. After an interval allowed for drying, a cylinder of gas was ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... allow the tailor no caprices: Enjoin upon him, as his head is dear, To most exactly measure, sew and shear, So that the ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the black-marked ears. Wired or netted hares and rabbits are much preferred by the dealers to those that have been shot—and so, too, netted partridges—because they look so clean and tempt the purchaser. The blacksmith Ikey, who bought our rabbits, used to sew up the shot wounds when they were much knocked about, and trimmed up the shattered ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... wine, storm at midnight. When a robber chief is nailed through the hand to a door, his devoted followers hew off his arm and set him free. They capture girls for ransom, and sell them to panders. When one is troublesome, they propose to sew her up in the paunch of the yet living ass, and expose her to the mid-day sun. One of the gang, disguised as a bear, slays all his keepers, and is himself torn in pieces by men and dogs. All the band are finally slaughtered ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... 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 ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... my note for the commandant ready by the time your horses are at the door. I will make it as small as possible, and you had better before you start sew it up in the lining of your coat, so that if you are searched—which I own I do not think to be likely, unless in some other way you excite the suspicions of the Spaniards—it may ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... practice and experiment, and is really no more difficult than any other domestic art. One would not expect to spin without being shown how to pull the wool and turn the wheel at the same time, or even to sew or knit without some sort of instruction, and the same ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... that's not unfounded, there never was an unfounded charge brought yet. I'd answer for Arthur with my own life. I should like to sew up that Butterby! I hope, sir, you'll bring an action ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... think! That sword-fish now stands before you!' I cal'late that brought the house down." Captain Philo, who had laid down his three-cornered sail-needle, to listen to this exciting story, readjusted the leather thimble that covered his palm, and began to sew again. Uncle Silas, sitting near the water door, in his brown overalls made with a breast-apron and suspender-straps, looked out at the boats. A silence ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... a piece of string," and Sue put her chubby hand in her pocket. She had had her mother sew two pockets in her dress, almost like the ones Bunny had in his little trousers. For Sue said she wanted to carry things in her pockets, just as her brother and ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... kindly intercourse between Gervaise and Coupeau continued on much the same footing. He thought her wonderfully courageous, declared she was killing herself with hard work all day and sitting up half the night to sew for the children. She was not like the women he had known; she took life too seriously, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... the brain begins to swim; Work—work—work, Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam, and gusset, and band, Band, and gusset, and seam, Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... certainly be considered a very wild little girl. I wonder how you would enjoy her for a playmate. She has never been to school, although she is more than seven years old, and doesn't know how to read, or even to tell her letters; she has never seen a book but once, and she has never learned to sew ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... 'Her Majesty be hanged. Am I not Autocrat of Paflagonia? Have I not blocks, ropes, axes, hangmen—ha? Runs not a river by my palace wall? Have I not sacks to sew up wives withal? Say but the word, that thou wilt be mine own,—your mistress straightway in a sack is sewn, and thou the sharer of my heart ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... remember arbout a story Mary Beard told ter me erbout a slave woman dat war foolish. Her Massa couldn't git no body ter buy her, hee, hee, hee, so he dresses her up nice en buys her a thimble en gives her a piece of cloth ter sew on. It war right here in Hopkinsville in front of de court house dat de block war en he sold dis woman as a "sewing slave", en her war foolish en couldn't take er right stitch en she sho brought a good price en wen her new Massa found ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... / "Upon his tunic sew Thou a little token. / Thereby shall I know Where I may protect him / when in the fight we strain." She weened to save the hero, / yet wrought she nothing save ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... "You 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 on him, and that the last ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... And I'll take care of your clothes; you really are dreadfully shabby"; she turned him round to the light, and brushed off some ashes. The Captain beamed. "Poor Alfred! and there's a button gone! that daughter-in-law of yours can't sew any more than a cat (and she is a cat!). But I love to mend. Mary has saved me all that. She's such a good daughter—poor Mary. ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... this unpleasantness; but Jeanne explained to me that, as she was charged by Mademoiselle Prefere with the duties of taking care of the youngest class, of washing and dressing the children, of teaching them how to behave, how to sew, how to say the alphabet, of showing them how to play, and, finally, of putting them to bed at the close of the day, she could not make herself obeyed by those turbulent little folks on the days she was condemned to wear ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... have more time than we have! They ought to be mighty good and grateful to get anything, no matter what shape it's in. I know I'm not going to sit and sew for that lazy Mrs. Vopni, with all I've got to ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... shoulder the knife would have gone right into you; but you see I expect he was springing as he struck, and the blow fell nearly perpendicularly, and it glanced down over your ribs, and made a gash six inches long. There is no danger. I will bandage it now, and tomorrow morning I will sew the edges together, and make ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... done in Syria. From the days of Mrs. Sarah L. Smith to the present time, Moslem girls have been taught to read and write and sew, and there are many now learning in the various American, British and Prussian schools. But it will be long before any true idea of the dignity of woman enters the debased minds of Arab Mohammedans. The simple ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... the bed-quilt as in winter. We sup by daylight, and hardly know where the candlesticks are. In the bed-chamber the windows are open day and night, and likewise most of the doors, without danger. The oldest women stand by the window without a chill, and sew. Flowers lie about everywhere—by the ink-stand—on the lawyer's papers—on the justice's table, and the tradesman's counter. The children make a great noise, and one hears bowling of ninepin alleys half the night through our walks up and down ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... many monks were come to visit him to receive his spiritual advice, to spill a vessel of honey, and then to gather it up without any dust. At other times he ordered him to draw water a whole day and pour it out again; to make baskets and pull them to pieces; to sew and unsew his garments, and the like.[2] What victories over themselves and their passions might youth and others, &c., gain! what a treasure of virtue might they procure, by a ready and voluntary obedience and conformity of their ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... almost as well prepared for my lifework as Carl was for his. Instead of just waiting in sweet, sighing idleness I took courses in domestic science, studied dietetics, mastered double-entry and learned to sew. I also began reading up on economics. The latter amused the family, for they thought the higher education of women quite unwomanly and had refused to let me go ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... feel this sickness of absence. I imagine myself wherever you are. I follow your work with my eyes, or I listen to your words, seated beside you and seeking to divine the word which you are about to utter; your sisters sew by our side. Empty dreams—illusions of a moment—my hand seeks yours; where are ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... Now what does that word mean to you, children?" One little girl stands up, smooths out her frock, straightens her bow, folds her hands, and, being properly adjusted to recite, exclaims: "Sociology is a science that teaches you how to sew." ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... expensive than the Mussulman and Lall Beggies, and are therefore not so frequently employed: indeed, it is only in the neighbourhood of Calcutta that they are procurable at all. As the Hindostanee women neither knit nor sew, they seem to devote their energies exclusively to their infant charge. The baba is their work and their play, the exercise of their thoughts, the substance of their dreams. He is the only book they read; and the only expansion their minds know is from ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... of female population added very much to the charms of frontier society. The Mexican women were not by any means useless appendages in camp. They could keep house, cook some dainty dishes, wash clothes, sew, dance, and sing,—moreover, they were expert at cards, and divested many a miner of his week's wages over a ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston
... doting mother came, And soothed her daughter then; "Grieve not, my darling, I will sew Your ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... would of been a grass widower long ago if I was ugly and how will it be if I get shot up in the war and Florrie would sew me for a bill of divorce on the grounds that I didn't have no nose to smell ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... Grandmamma was very well last week. I have made the purchase I told you of a few pages agone, that is, last Thursday I purchas'd with my aunt Deming's leave, a very beautiful white feather hat, that is, the out side, which is a bit of white hollond with the feathers sew'd on in a most curious manner white & unsullyed as the falling snow, this hat I have long been saving my money to procure for which I have let your kind allowance, Papa, lay in my aunt's hands till this hat which I spoke ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... on Sunday morning, just before breakfast, you'll come to me and put your arms around my neck and say: 'Dear, sweet, lovely Suzanna, I'm so sorry I've been so hateful. I'll go down on my knees for your forgiveness. And I'll sew on all the buttons ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... girls are doing well in cutting and basting. We hope to have a class in dressmaking soon. The little ones are very happy to have sewing days come. I am often met with the question, "Is us going to sew to-day?" I meet these forty little ones in a large sunny room, (that is to be our parlor some day, I hope) for an hour and a half each week. Their eyes brighten at the sight of the basins of water and the work basket. ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 3, March, 1889 • Various
... personal matther," he declared. "'Twas settled satisfacthory. I'll not die, an' I'll talk to no man but Misther Daney. Sew me up an' plug me lung, an' ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... days wondrous long. There was time for all the pleasures from which she had been so long debarred. Time to read, time to sew, time to pay and to receive shy, short morning calls, time to scrub and polish until her room shone, time for experiments in cookery, time to stretch her father's wages to undreamed-of lengths, even time ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... she tried to hide them as she leaned over and gathered up his treasures—three nails, a string, a broken top, and a half-eaten chunk of cold corn-bread. As she handed them to him she said: "And I'll lay the pockets away for you, Solomon, and when we see that you are an honest boy I'll sew them back ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... spectacles on a black ribbon, eating her lunches wherever she can get them. No, I am an Emily who is young and beautiful, a sort of fairy-tale Princess, an Emily who, if she wishes, shall sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, but who doesn't wish it because she hates to sew, and would much rather work in her silver-bell-and-cockle shell garden—oh, such a wonderful ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... but had spent two winters in a State Normal School. She was a trim body, compactly built, had black hair and eyes, and a fresh, rosy complexion that is so characteristic of her class. She could ride a fractious horse, milk, sew, knit and cook, and had followed the plow more than one day; while during harvest and corn-husking she had many a time "made a hand." From this cause she was strong and well knit in all her frame, a perfect picture of young womanly health ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... said Patty, with an air of satisfaction, "for, though I hate to sew, yet sometimes it must be done; and with that little work-table, I think I could sew ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... had finished her housework and had sat down to sew, half a dozen Indians, male and female, suddenly bolted in and clamored for bread. She shook her head and told them she had none for them. When she came West she had brought yeast cakes which, by careful renewal, she kept in succession ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... ever forget a kindness," added Mary. "I will sew this feather in your hunting-cap, and then trust you, my own dear husband, to God's keeping; but though I know he could take care of you without it, yet I remember my dear father used to say that we were ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... easily tanned into soft and pliant leather. They all knew how to cut these skins, and with tough sinews to sew them into hunting-shirts, moccasins, and other needed garments. Sitting Indian-fashion on mattresses or cushions of bearskin, with just enough to do gently to interest the mind, with no anxiety or thought even about the future, they would loiter listlessly ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... hour's debating, it was agreed that, for the future, Berka, if he lived till another year, (for the aged chieftain is "tottering o'er the grave,") should have a smaller present, and the portion subtracted should be given to The Giant. But this is cutting the blanket at one end, to sew the piece on the other, for the sons and nephews of Berka now share the presents amongst them. His Giantship was very condescending to me, though savage enough with the merchant. He laughed and joked, and "grinned a ghastly smile," ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... skippers' private benefit, you understand: furs, such as sable, marten, and squirrel; they send old ship's stores ashore to trade with vagrant Indians, and then sew up the skins in their clothes, between the lining and the stuff, so as to pass the Custom-house officers at home. Bob! I'm longing to be ashore for good. You don't know what it is to feel firm ground under ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... I never meant to be married, but when Morgan comes to me and talks about what I was thinking about—how you and that poor darling motherless boy was to get on in foreign abroad, all amongst wild beasts and savages, and no one to make a drop o' gruel if you had colds, or to make your beds, or sew on a button, and your poor stockings all in holes big enough to break any decent woman's heart, and to ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... material neatly doubled and sewed together, forty to forty-five inches long, and one and three-quarters inches wide. Cut the back piece about nineteen inches long, so as to allow for a flap eight inches long to fold over the top and down the front. Sew the strap on the upper corners of the back piece, having first sewed a facing inside, to prevent ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... ordinary divisions of the earth, its shape, diameter, circumference, and the names of the continents, oceans, seas, gulfs, etc. etc. together with the general description of the inhabitants of each part, as to colour, etc. Of the girls, fourteen had been taught to sew, and have made upwards of fifty garments for themselves, besides several shirts ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... factory and lives with 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
... and hot.—If the liver is to be roasted, first wash and wipe it, then cut a long hole in it, and stuff it with crumbs of bread, chopped anchovy, herbs, fat bacon, onion, salt, pepper, a bit of butter, and an egg. Sew up the liver, lard or wrap it in a veal caul, and put it to the fire. Serve it with good brown gravy, and currant jelly.—If the liver and lights are to be dressed together, half boil an equal quantity of each; then cut them in a middling-sized mince, add a spoonful or ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... sees exactly how it is,—he be a devil, but he be only a sea-devil and not a shore-devil, and I'll tell you for why. Didn't he come on board some how no how in a gale of wind when he was called for? Didn't I sew him up in a bread-bag, and didn't he come back just as nothing had happened; and didn't the corporal launch him into a surge over the taffrail, and he comes back just as if nothing had happened? Well, then, one thing is clear; that his power be on the water, and no ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... should have liked to spend my last days with Sophia! What keeps Dr. Maybury alive so, I can't imagine. If he had only—gone to his rest"—said the good woman, "Sophia and I could join our forces and live together in clover. And how we should enjoy it! We could talk together, read together, sew together. No more long, dull evenings and lonely nights listening to the mice. But a friend, a dear sister, constantly at hand! Sophia was the gentlest young woman, the prettiest,—oh, how I loved her in those days! ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... let them learn to know Of household duties, and to sew; For oft a button, oft a rip, By sewing they may save a "fip." Yes, let them know that "woman's work" With many a turn and many a quirk, Is not "a play with straws," as some. Would seem to think. 'Tis ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... over, like a great dish of oeufs a la neige, with lawn or mull or what-not, and (I verily believe to complete her content) my ungainly figure and hatchet-face within her purview. She would eat and sew industriously. Sometimes she would press too hard on a sweetmeat and with a little cry would hold up ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... put it up, Hester," he panted joyously. "Ye hain't got to sew no more, an' I hain't neither. ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... sew, the gold eddies before your eyes, while from standing in the morning at prayer your back just aches, and your legs ache. And at evening there is service again. You knock at the door of the mother superior's cell: 'Through prayers ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... said, as to the greater economy of his plan, there could be no doubt; for although they might, at particular times, make more by gardening than they could save by spinning or sewing, yet there were other times when they could not till the ground, and when, of course, if they did not sew or spin, they would be idle; but if they did work, the proceeds would be clear gain. He said he did not wish his daughters to be constantly employed in making clothes, nor was it necessary that they should be. A variety ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... all equally alien from the nature of thought."—Ib. "The resolving of a sentence into its elements or parts of speech and stating the Accidents which belong to these, is called PARSING."—Bullion's Pract. Lessons, p. 9. "To spin and to weave, to knit and to sew, was once a girl's employment; but now to dress and catch a beau, is all she calls enjoyment."—Lynn ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... with what Grace and I have undertaken," Ruth assured him. "All you do, in the 'Thread and Needle Race,' is to ride across this field on horseback carrying a needle. Of course, the real burden is on the woman. It always is. Some fair one is waiting for you at the end of your ride; she must sew a button on your coat. The sooner she can accomplish this, the better; for back you must ride, again, to the starting place, with the button ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... women has a hard, masculine look. If they sew, it is with thick cotton in some coarse material; if they knit, it is with cricket-balls of wool, which they manipulate into wiry stockings and comforters. Evelyn's wools, on the contrary, were always soft, fleecy, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... himself. "I wouldn't do that, if I were you. In fact, I've been thinking 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, I think ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... which he afterwards uses as best he may be able. He answers to the description I have heard given of a tailor, a man who cuts to pieces whatever is delivered to him from the loom, that he may afterwards sew it together again. The poet therefore, we may be told, adds nothing to the stock of ideas and conceptions already laid up in the storehouse of mind. But the man who is employed upon the secrets of nature, is eternally in progress; day after day he delivers in to the magazine of materials ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... you do. But I think you ought to learn to sew, and, moreover, I think this would be an appropriate thing to do. I want you to make a little dress for Totty. I will do the more difficult parts, such as putting it together, but you must run the tucks, and hem it, and overhand the seams. And it must be done very neatly, as all babies' dresses should ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... not everything," said Mona, smiling slightly. "I have always loved to sew since I was a little child, and my nurse made me do patchwork; and I assure you that I am quite an expert with my needle in ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... but grandmother was foolishly, inconsistently proud, and though compelled to sew for our daily bread, she dressed me in a style incompatible with our poverty, and contrived to send me to school. Finally her eyes failed, and with destitution staring open-jawed upon us, she reluctantly consented to do the washing and mending for three college ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... said Elizabeth. 'Oh! if you look so lamentable about it, Helen, we do not want your help. Dora will sew the seams very nicely, and enjoy the work too. I thought you might be glad to turn ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no small thing to say of the missionaries of the American Board, that in less than forty years they have taught this whole people to read and to write, to cipher and to sew. They have given them an alphabet, grammar, and dictionary; preserved their language from extinction; given it a literature, and translated into it the Bible, and works of devotion, science, and entertainment, etc. They have established schools, reared up native teachers, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... 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 her tastefu' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... hard to 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 ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... is yours and the child's, and you know it, Mary Carew," and the good-hearted chorus-lady, with a reproachful backward glance at her room-mate, flounced out the door, leaving the re-assured Mary to sew, by the light of an ill-smelling lamp, until her return ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... general application; a piece of proverbial wisdom that may be quoted in a good many sets of circumstance, and which will almost bear on its face the evidence of its truth. But with a Sutra the case is different. It comes from the same root as the word "sew," and means, indeed, a thread, suggesting, therefore, a close knit, consecutive chain of argument. Not only has each Sutra a definite place in the system, but further, taken out of this place, it ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... higher education," said I; "but how about the Agency school, where you teach them to farm and to sew and to cook, as well as to read and to write? ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... she sat down by the fire, and tried to sew, and tried to look unconcerned, and tried to feel unconcerned, and tried not to expect anybody, and tried to make her heart keep still. And tried in vain. For a gentle rap at the door sent her pulse up twenty beats a minute and made her face burn. And Hartsook was ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... I sew). The line of junction of two parts which are immovably connected together. Applied to the line where the whorls of a univalve shell join one another; also to the lines made upon the exterior of the shell of a chambered Cephalopod by ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... said Anthea; 'never mind about my stockings. I can sew them up in lumps with sewing cotton if there's no time to do them properly. I know it's awful and no girl would who respected herself, and all that; but the poor dear carpet's more important than my silly stockings. Let's go out ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... the permission to call again was granted, it was received with gratitude. The little girl departed with a cheerful countenance; and Bell teazed her maid till she got her to sew the long ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... evenin's but to walk in the Common, or go to the movies, if we had the dime to blow in, or just stay in our room. Well, our room wasn't very pleasant. It was hot in summer, and cold in winter, and the gas-jet was so measly and so flickery that we couldn't sew or read, even if we hadn't been too fagged out to do either—which we 'most generally was. Besides, over our heads was a squeaky board that some one was always rockin' on, and under us was a feller that was learnin' ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... there's only one more thing I have to speak about. I know some girls, who have formed themselves into a band called a 'King's Daughter Circle,' and they meet once a week to sew for somebody who is not able to do her own sewing. I've told these girls a little about you and they want very much to do some sewing for Little Brother and you. Now, would you be willing to let them come here to-morrow afternoon? Would it ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... determined to free her brothers even if it should cost her her life. She left the hut, went into the forest, climbed a tree, and spent the night there. The next morning she went out, collected star-flowers, and began to sew. She could speak to no one, and she had no wish to laugh, so she sat there, looking ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... sandals, and because Eric was well rested by then, he was allowed to help at them. They were cut from the strip of brown leather, and Helma showed Eric how to shape them and sew them himself. So after supper he stood attired, all in brown, a pale, happy child, ready ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... out, and Joe asked if the young woman might sew them on as she had done Harry's; and when she came in, Joe looked at her, and tried to put on a military bearing, in imitation of his great prototype; and actually went so far as to address her as "My dear," for which liberty he almost expected ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... that you cannot domesticate a preacher like William on this earth in this life. A woman might get married to him and hang like a kissing millstone about his neck; she might sew on his buttons, bear children for him, teach him to eat rolled oats, surround him with every evidence, privilege and obligation of strong earthly ties and a home; but he will not live there in his spirit. He belongs neither to his wife, nor to his children, nor to the civilization ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... did so, that all his hair had been sheared off, except a tuft on the end of his tail. She was so angry that she could not refrain from shedding tears. The puppy shivered, trembled, and whined in the cold, and Miss Dobb was obliged to sew him up in flannel. He looked so funny in his coat, with the tuft of hair waving on the end of his tail, that Miss Dobb laughed notwithstanding her anger. In the morning she went out to tell her neighbors what had ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... is in the Territory now—and this country used to be respectable. Why, when I first come here there wasn't a doctor within a thousand miles, and no need for one. If one of the boys got shot up much, we always found some way to laundry him and sew him together again without no need of a diplomy. No one ever got sick; and, of course, no one ever did die of his own accord, the way they do back ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... everything," returned his mother. "But what she wants to do is to be a dressmaker. And Daddy has prevailed on Tim to let him send her to a trade school where she can learn to sew. After she has graduated, if she wishes, she can pay him back the money. Daddy had to arrange it that way because the ...
— Sunny Boy in the Big City • Ramy Allison White
... needle nor thread with which to sew up those holes," said Langdon, with wicked glee, "and he must go into battle again with a tunic more holy than righteous. It's been a ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... dull where there's not! Up yonder now there's too much art; high art indeed—but still art! From my mother and sisters all nature seems to have been educated, refined, and polished away. There we all sat this morning in the parlor, the young ladies punching holes in pieces of muslin, to sew them up again, and calling the work embroidery; and there was my mother, actually working a blue lamb on red grass, and calling her employment worsted work. There was no talk but of patterns, no fire but what was shut up close in a horrid radiator. Really, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... attacked, then," cried Rob as he looked at the wound in horror, while in a quiet, methodical way Shaddy proceeded to sew it together by the simple process of thrusting a couple of pins through the skin and then winding a thread of silk round them in turn from head to point, after which he firmly bandaged the wound before making a reply to ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... spin more cloth, and sew and knit, that when her own clothes wear out we may clothe this miserable Lapp child" (for the good dame was a true Norwegian, and despised the Lapps); "and our little ones must divide their brown bread and milk with her, for we are too poor to buy more, and it is very bad altogether. Ah! I ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... she said, stroking and cuddling him. "Come along and we'll take babykins upstairs and sew her all up as good as new and forget all ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... twentythree. When we left Lombard street west something changed. Could never like it again after Rudy. Can't bring back time. Like holding water in your hand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning then. Would you? Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy? Wants to sew on buttons for me. I must answer. Write ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... rode, did ride. seen, beheld. road, a way; route. scene, a view. rowed, did row. seine, a net for fishing. room, an apartment. slay, to kill. rheum, a serous fluid. sleigh, a vehicle on runners. sow, to scatter seed. sley, a weaver's reed. sew (so), to use a needle. seem, to appear. so, thus; in like manner. ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... for me. It would be better than having new clothes made; for, even if these were dirtied, they would not look old. When he has bought the clothes, he can give them a good washing, and then get a piece of stuff to sew on as patches. ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... She had nearly revealed to him that she cared only lest some disaster come to him in his risky occupation; that she would like him to be ploughing in a safe level field at the side of a cabin, where she might sit by the window and sew, and look out and see that no harm befell this big bold man, six feet two inches high. "Con Hite!" she exclaimed, her face scarlet, "I never see a body ez hard-hearted an' onmerciful ez ye air. Whyn't ye water that sufferin' beast, ez air fairly honing ter drink? Waal," she continued, after a pause ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... They would spend hours telling you about their different remedies and would offer you spoonful after spoonful of vile-looking liquid, and be mildly grieved when you refused to take it. Grandma's hands are so bent and twisted that she can't sew, so dear old Grandpa tries to ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... kindly and helpful she was too, and clever at the work, besides; she could cut out material without a pattern. Sometimes she would even hem a whole length on her machine, and all for nothing, and give the stuff back to the girls with a delightful jest: "There—now you can sew ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... forcemeat mixed with a little chopped suet, ham, bacon, herbs, two tablespoonsful of finely chopped pistacchio nuts, a pinch of spice, six coriander seeds, two tablespoonsful of grated Parmesan, cuttings of truffles and mushrooms all bound together with eggs. Sew the pig up and braize it in a big stewpan with bits of bacon, a clove of garlic with two cuts, a bunch of herbs and one bay leaf, for half an hour. Then pour off the gravy, cover the pig with well-buttered paper, and finish cooking it in the oven. Garnish the top with vegetables ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters |
