"Mattress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... world in the form of a salmon, and caught by some fisherman off Kinsale. He was found one morning hanging by a strip of his blanket to an old mop nail, which he had fixed between the partition boards of his cell, having taken the precaution of laying his mattress under him to prevent noise in ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... called back to the farm by his father's illness his mother gave him, for his own use, a small room behind the untenanted "best parlour." Here he had nailed up shelves for his books, built himself a box-sofa out of boards and a mattress, laid out his papers on a kitchen-table, hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of Abraham Lincoln and a calendar with "Thoughts from the Poets," and tried, with these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the study of a "minister" who had been kind to him and ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... tapeworms securely their bowels digest; May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair, And frequent impalement their pleasure impair. Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse, By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors— The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores! Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin! Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin, Avenging the friend ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... on a thin cotton mattress, which is unfolded and laid out over our white mats. Chrysantheme's pillow is a little wooden block, scooped out to fit exactly the nape of the neck, without disturbing the elaborate head-dress, which must never be taken down; the pretty black hair I shall ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... the carriage driven up as close as possible. I brought a small mattress, and think the ride will not be very painful. What splendid eyes she has! Poor little thing! Of course you will come and prescribe for her, and I will see that she is carefully nursed until she is quite well again. ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... constant ventilation, either by the windows, doors, or flues, or by all. Next, a comfortable bed, of almost any material, except cotton and feathers, though the latter might be indulged in during the severest season; but it is better to dispense with them in toto, and use instead a mattress of hair, husk, moss, or straw. These even should be frequently aired, but only upon bright sunny days, and occasionally changed altogether for new material. In place of heavy cotton counterpanes use woollen blankets ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... us, I intend to stick by you." Thanks to Mr Henley's kindness, I had been allowed to arrange a berth for Solon just outside his cabin, between two chests, and within sight of my hammock. I made a mattress for him with some bits of old canvas stuffed with straw; for although a dog will do well enough even without a rug on the quiet ground, when a ship is pitching and rolling about he is very much the better for something soft to protect his ribs, as well as to keep him off the damp deck. He ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... endless string of words; but his eyes grew heavier and drowsier, and they forthwith waited upon him until he went to sleep; when Hsi Jen unclasped the jade of spiritual perception, and rolling it up in a handkerchief, she lay it under the mattress, with the idea that when he put it on the next day it should ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... it and seized the cotton mattress from the inside. With his gun ready he advanced toward the barricaded door, holding the mattress as a shield, for his experience in wild countries had taught him that a cotton mattress is about as good a thing ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... that was without family or friends. Myles Gorman. Help me to lay down the mattress. Where will you ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... now, but it was years before I could bring myself to do it. I wonder where we got that superstition that it brought bad luck? If we woke in the night, up in Crow's Nest, and wanted to shift our positions, we got up and walked around the foot of the mattress, so we could lie on the other side without ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... and examine the pictures of a pink Moses in a nest of purple bullrushes, or complain because the bureau does not harmonize with the wall paper. Neither do you criticize the blue and saffron roses that form the rug pattern. 'Deedy not! Instead you warily punch the mattress to see if it is rock-stuffed, and you snoop into the clothes closet; you inquire the distance to the nearest bath room, and whether the payments are weekly or monthly, and if there is a baby in the room next door. ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... door and O'Malley shoved into the room close behind him. They stood looking at Sim's bunk. The straw ticking of the mattress had been slit open and some of the straw was scattered on the floor. Sim was not in the room. Stan walked over to a little table. One small light bulb was flooding the room ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... the baggage should be seized and searched, the discovery of the crown might have fatal consequences. Helen, on this, observed that the king was more important than the crown, and that the best way would be to keep them together; so she wrapped up the crown in a cloth, and hid it under the mattress of his cradle, with a long spoon for mixing his pap upon the top, so, said the queen, he might take care of his ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... distressed at the news, and ran off instantly to harness up his old mare, and sled. Madame Jacques placed a mattress on the ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... through the loopholes, and she found that the day was considerably advanced. June still lay near her, sleeping as tranquilly as if she reposed on—we will not say "down," for the superior civilization of our own times repudiates the simile—but on a French mattress, and as profoundly as if she had never experienced concern. The movements of Mabel, notwithstanding, soon awakened one so accustomed to vigilance; and then the two took a survey of what was passing around them by means of ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... incoherent, impossible thoughts and actions; a blank world in which all his workaday doings were forgotten; an after-life of tiring sleep following on the carouse of yesterday. He lay half-suffocated in the stifling heat of that tiled garret, lay tossing on a straw mattress. And suddenly, with a jolt that jerked him sleeping like a beast of burden. And now why couldn't he take life as it came, like his mates, who just went through it anyhow, without any calculating, callously and cheerfully, something like a machine which, ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... had gone about twenty feet, it opened into a high-vaulted cavern. Soon Rebecca found the lantern and lighted it. I looked about in surprise; the place was quite comfortably furnished with a chair, a rough table and a mattress with bedding upon it. ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the fern-wove mattress lay No weary guest. St. Colum kneeled, And found no trace; but, ashen-grey, Far off he heard ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... Mothe knew was allotted to Commines, and as he scanned the flagged floor of the passage, searching for the sign Commines had given him, a shadow amongst the shadows stirred his curiosity, and he stole nearer on tiptoe: it was a mattress laid before a closed door, and stretched upon it lay a man ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... nations, and but three steps from us, think the fear of the night-dew, that so manifestly is hurtful to us, a ridiculous fancy; and our own watermen and peasants laugh at it. You make a German sick if you lay him upon a mattress, as you do an Italian if you lay him on a feather-bed, and a Frenchman, if without curtains or fire. A Spanish stomach cannot hold out to eat as we can, nor ours to drink like the Swiss. A German made me very merry at Augsburg, by finding fault with our hearths, by the same arguments ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... had at first proved fruitless, there was that in her excitement and attitude which led me to believe that she had found the mysterious documents at last. I glanced at the bed, and professional instinct told me all that had happened. The mattress had been flung contemptuously down by the bedside, and across it, face downwards, lay the body of the Count, like one of the paper envelopes that strewed the carpet—he too was nothing now but an envelope. There ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... the window, looked out as if watching for something, and then withdrew into the bare little sleeping room. Then the figure in the mirror went to the bed and carefully turned all the clothes back. The student of science watched the mirror intently. The figure bent over the uncovered mattress and quietly opened the sacking and took something out. It sat down on the edge of the disordered bed and proceeded to examine the box or bundle, whatever it might be, that it had found ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... they undressed in their rooms and in pyjamas and slippers came out into the compound, where on either side of a table on which was a lighted lamp stood their bedsteads, the mattress of each covered with a thin strip of soft China matting. For in the hot weather in many parts of India this must be used to lie upon instead of a linen sheet, which would become saturated with perspiration. ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... looked within. A first look told him that the wagon was fitted up for a long journey, and that its contents had not been disturbed by bandits or Indians. The second look distinguished two objects that excluded from attention all others. Upon a mattress at the rear of the wagon lay a woman, her face covered by a cloth; and near the front seat stood a keg of water. It was impossible to note the rigid form of the woman and the position of the arms and hands without perceiving that ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... or girl—should sleep alone, on a rather hard mattress. The covering should be light. A coverlet may be put over the feet. The child always should sleep with the arms out upon the cover or blanket, never under the same. If this is done from childhood on, it is very easy to get used ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... the Rota bought by certain presents, not relics or indulgences, but jewels and gold, the favour of being familiar with the best of these pampered cats who lived under the protection of the lords of the Council; the poor Touranian, all simpleton and innocent as he was, treasured up under his mattress the money given him by the good archbishop for writings and copying—hoping one day to have enough just to see a cardinal's lady-love, and trusting to God for the rest. He was hairless from top to toe and resembled a man about as much as a ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... to make a bed. You will remember that all the bedclothing must be smooth and even, when the bed is made. You are lucky if you have a sister to help you make your bed, for this piece of work is easier for two than for one. You will see that the mattress is lying straight. Once a week you (the two of you) will turn the mattress, end over end one week, and side over side the next week. Then your mattress will wear evenly, and not have a hollow in the middle where you sleep all the time. Then you two will lay ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... part of a garret, with a sloping side and a dormer window. Opposite was a large brick chimney with an open fireplace. Near it lay a mattress on the floor, and ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... cases it is well to try a mattress foundation, which may be formed of brushwood and small saplings with butts from inch to 2 inches in diameter, compressed into bundles from 8 to 12 inches diameter, and from 12 to 16 feet long, and well tied with ropes every four feet. Other bundles, from 4 to 6 inches ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... in the rain at Bakaritza. About thirty men could be accommodated in the old Russian Red Cross Hospital, such as it was, dirt and all. The remainder were temporarily put into old barracks. What "flu"-weakened soldier will ever forget those double decked pine board beds, sans mattress, sans linen, sans pillows? If lucky, a man had two blankets. He could not take off his clothes. Death stalked gauntly through and many a man died with his boots on in bed. The glory of dying in France to lie under a field of poppies had come ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... of coolness it was now; the slightest mistake would be fatal. The keys had slipped from the mattress of the divan, and now lay just beyond reach of my fingers. Rapidly I changed my position, and sought, without undue noise, to move ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... the entrance of the town. My uncle, bearing Larry in his arms, entered it with me, and ordering a mattress to be brought, placed him ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... it said, "why not you? I may shut you up in a prison some day like your son George. I may tap you on the head to-morrow, and away go pleasure and honours, feasts and beauty, friends, flatterers, French cooks, fine horses and houses—in exchange for a prison, a keeper, and a straw mattress like George Gaunt's." And then my lord would defy the ghost which threatened him, for he knew of a remedy by which he could baulk ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... when possible to find a harder bed; the floor, with a single folded blanket beneath the sleeper, would be preferable. Soft pillows heat the head, as soft beds produce heat in other parts. A hair mattress, or a bed of corn husks, oat straw, or excelsior—covered with two or three blankets or a quilted cotton mattress—makes a ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... faded. The journey to Italy must be given up; she was not in condition to be brought home, and she reluctantly resigned herself to remain where she was and "convalesce," as she confidently believed, in the spring. Once again came the analogy, which she herself pointed out now, to Heine on his mattress-grave in Paris. She, too, the last time she went out, dragged herself to the Louvre, to the feet of the Venus, "the goddess without arms, who could not help." Only her indomitable will and intense desire to live seemed to keep her alive. She sunk to a very ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... that he had paid for one, and kindly offered him a mattress on the floor, assuring him that there would be plenty of berths after ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... hundred people with good eyes would listen to him all night; For they took great enjoyment in the heaven of his mind, And were glad when the old blind poet let them share his powers of sight. And there was Heine lying on his mattress all day long, He had no wealth, he had no friends, he had no joy at all, Except to pour his sorrow into little cups of song, And the world finds in them the magic wine that his broken ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer
... ripened summer after summer, and the gaunt pine-trees had gone on for many years weaving poor Tom's mattress, there came a change in the aspect of things. He still made his way to the village, seeking chairs to mend; but he was even more unkempt than of old, his tall figure was bent, and his fingers trembled as he wove the willow strands in and ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... had been put was large, whitewashed, and empty, except that a bed, a table and two chairs, stood about. The bed was no doubt a good one; but the idiot had taken off the mattress and the blankets, and lain down in his clothes on the straw bed. Thus the magistrate and the physician found him as they entered. He rose at their appearance; but, when he saw the gendarme, he uttered a cry, and tried to hide under the bed. M. Galpin ordered the gendarme to pull him out again. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... had been provided. It was one large room barely furnished. Upon one side straw was thickly littered down—for in those days beds among the common people were unknown. In a sort of alcove at the end was a couch with a rough mattress and coverlet. This Cuthbert took possession of, while his followers stretched ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... wrestling with two Japanese wrestlers three times a week. I am not the age or the build one would think to be whirled lightly over an opponent's head and batted down on a mattress without damage. But they are so skilful that I have not been hurt at all. My throat is a little sore, because once when one of them had a strangle hold I also got hold of his windpipe and thought I could perhaps choke ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... faintness came over me, and I sank back. Then Gabord laid me down, went to the door, and called in two soldiers with a mattress. I was wrapped in my cloak and blankets, laid thereon, and so was borne forth, all covered even to my weak eyes. I was placed in a sleigh, and as the horses sprang away, the clear sleigh-bells rang out, and a gun from the ramparts was fired to give the noon ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... utmost care, the injured seaman was lifted up and carried into the deckhouse, where, in accordance with Dick's instructions, he was laid upon the table, a mattress having first been hurriedly dragged from one of the bunks and placed to receive him. Then, leaving the patient for the moment in charge of the other man, Dick hurried to the forecastle and brought up the ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... his room Billy withdrew his tools from their hiding place beneath the mattress, and a moment later was busily engaged in boring holes through the floor at the foot of his bed. For an hour he worked, cautiously and quietly, until he had a rough circle of holes enclosing a space about two feet in ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in the familiar luxury which had lapped her round since childhood, was a harder, more bitter night than any of the preceding three hundred and sixty-five she had spent tossing weary, aching limbs on a lumpy straw mattress with a coarse brown woollen blanket drawn up beneath her chin, vexing her ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... to the wall, pressed his face to the hard mattress, and let the deadly hate he bore his cousin fill his very being. He pressed his hand on the stolen papers hidden in his kit. Zaidos must die. Zaidos must die! All his evil blood boiled in him. For hours, when he should have been sleeping off his fatigue, as Zaidos ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... little. Until the Japanese developed a taste for copying European customs and manners, the habit seems to have been to sit on mats and to use small tables raised a few inches from the ground. Even the bedrooms contained no bedsteads, but a light mattress served for bed ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... red curtains are put down, and in solemn silence all, the last mysterious preparations begin. At length it is announced that all is ready. Forthwith the whole company rush back, and find the walls embellished by a series of little shelves, about a foot wide, each furnished with a mattress and bedding, and hooked to the ceiling by a very suspiciously slender cord. Direful are the ruminations and exclamations of inexperienced travellers, particularly young ones, as they eye these very equivocal accommodations. "What, sleep up there! I won't sleep on ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the circumstances, he went upstairs, turned over his bed, and drew out a flat canvas bag which lay between the mattress and the sacking. In this he kept his leases, which had remained there unopened ever since his father's death. It was the usual hiding-place among rural lifeholders for such documents. Winterborne sat down on the bed and looked them over. They were ordinary leases ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... wounded had been conveyed to the sick-houses; one only was left whom they had not been able to move. He was lying on a mattress between two of the columns at some little distance from Agne, and the light of a lamp, standing on a medicine-chest, fell on his handsome but bloodless features. A deaconess was kneeling at his head and gazed in silence in the face of the dead, while ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... stretched with its sloping roof to the breeze and its front open toward the pond. There were no balsam or hemlock boughs for the beds, so we gathered armfuls of fallen leaves and pine needles, and spread our blankets on this rude mattress. Arthur and Walter cut wood for the fire. Master Thomas and William busied themselves with the supper. There was a famous dish of scrambled eggs, and creamed potatoes, and bacon, and I know not what else. We ate till we could eat no more, and then we sat in the wide-open ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... been sent to sheds and so forth, where they found some straw to lie upon. The address on my second paper was that of a basket-maker, whose house was pointed out to us. We were very cordially received there, and taken to a room containing a bed provided with a sommier elastique. But there was no mattress, no sheet, no blanket, no bolster, no pillow—everything of that kind having been requisitioned for the German ambulances; and I recollect that two or three hours later, when my father and myself retired to rest in that icy chamber, the window of which was badly broken, we were glad ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... remembrance to be left with them. But we did not accept their invitation to walk up, but passed down the yard, by heaps of manure and refuse of all kinds, by another kraal, where a bucket containing coal was burning, and a young man lay stretched on a dirty mattress, and a little bantam kept watch beside him, to the steps of another caravan, where, from the sounds we heard, high jinks were going on with some children. At the sound of a tap on the door there was an instant hush, and ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... very true: so I let Bettina come. Richard gave her some instructions at the door, and she came in and arranged things for the night, and lay down on a mattress at ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... belts; *seven shirts and twelve collars; *six pairs winter socks; *six pairs summer socks; *four pairs summer drawers; *three pairs winter drawers; *six pocket-handkerchiefs; *six towels; *one clothes- bag, made of ticking; *one clothes-brush; *one hair-brush; *one tooth-brush; *one comb; one mattress; one pillow; *two pillow-cases; *two pairs sheets; one pair blankets; *one quilted bed-cover; one chair; one tumbler; *one trunk; one account-book; and will unite with his room- mate in purchasing, for their common use, one ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... piece of bread my eyes chanced to rest upon my hand. The knuckles were skinned and inflamed clear across, the fingers swollen, the nails rimmed with black. I felt the mattress-like growth of beard on my neck, knew that the sleeve of my coat was ripped, that a button was missing from the throat of the blue shirt I wore. The dirk mentioned by Wolf Larsen rested in its sheath on my hip. It was very natural ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... as he was told, wondering meanwhile why the gas had gone out. No one had turned it out, and yet the key was unmistakably turned; and, what was worse, on ripping open Perkins's mattress, a most disquieting state of ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... I directed my steps in the direction of the Place d'Eylau. Two National Guards passed me, bearing a litter between them.—"Oh, you can look if you like," said one. So I drew back the checked curtain. On the mattress was stretched a woman, decently dressed, with a child of two or three years lying on her breast. They both looked very pale; one of the woman's arms was hanging down; her sleeve was stained with blood; the hand had been carried away.—"Where were they ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... Bill grew worse, his ravings became faint and low, and he lay gathered up on a corner of his mattress. I had placed a pitcher of water as near him as possible, escaping by chance a blow which the poor soul struck at me in his feverish fury; but I could not help thinking of him when we had all gone to rest. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... was lying on a thick, dusty mattress, his head pillowed on a bundle of cloth that smelled of cotton and dyestuffs. Faces emerged from the gloom around him. Some one was holding a torch over his strange couch. That odd face in bismuth and lampblack was bending ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... chauki[obs3], lamba kursi[obs3]; saddle, pannel[obs3], pillion; side saddle, pack saddle; pommel. bed, berth, pallet, tester, crib, cot, hammock, shakedown, trucklebed[obs3], cradle, litter, stretcher, bedstead; four poster, French bed, bunk, kip, palang[obs3]; bedding, bichhona, mattress, paillasse[obs3]; pillow, bolster; mat, rug, cushion. footstool, hassock; tabouret[obs3]; tripod, monopod. Atlas, Persides, Atlantes[obs3], Caryatides, Hercules. V. be supported &c.; lie on, sit on, recline on, lean on, loll on, rest on, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... character of the Emperor Alexander. We were struck with the simplicity of the style in which he lived. He inhabited only one or two apartments in a wing of the splendid Elysee Bourbon—slept on a leather mattress, which he had used in the campaign—rose at four in the morning, to transact business—wore the uniform of a Russian General, with only the medal of 1812, (the same which is worn by every soldier who served in that campaign, with the inscription, in Russ, Non ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... established. This is just the method of the simple and sensible Germans, who never wait for elegant upholstery. A pair of plain parallel bars, a movable vaulting-bar, a wooden horse, a spring-board, an old mattress to break the fall, a few settees where sweethearts and wives may sit with their knitting as spectators, and there is a Turnhalle complete,—to be henceforward filled, two or three nights in every week, with cheery German faces, jokes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... found me there and hailed a passing grocer's wagon. The boy whipped up his horse to bring a doctor, but on the way spread the news that I had been killed by a fall. Among the first callers after the accident were Donald G. Mitchell and his daughter, my neighbours. I lay on a mattress on the lawn all afternoon ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... Bemis, though perfectly conscious, made no comment whatever. But Buck, glancing toward him as he lay on the husk mattress behind the driver, surprised a fleeting but unmistakable expression of relief ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... faint and pitiful bleating of lambs. A lady who frequently visited the institution said that she never remembered examining the array of clean white cots that lined the walls without finding at least one dead babe. "In front of the fire was a sloping stage, on which was a mattress, and a row of these little creatures placed on it to warm and await their turn to be fed from the spoon by a nurse. After much persuasion, one that was crying piteously was released from its swaddling bands; it stretched its little limbs, and ceased its wailings." Supposing ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... her admire him; and if we could peep into Fanny's bed (which she shared in a cupboard, along with those two little sisters to whom we have seen Mr. Costigan administering gingerbread and apples), we should find the poor little maid tossing upon her mattress, to the great disturbance of its other two occupants, and thinking over all the delights and events of that delightful, eventful night, and all the words, looks, and actions of Arthur, its splendid ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and as he spoke the magic table appeared before their eyes. The hostess, struck dumb with astonishment, at once became covetous and resolved to have the napkin for herself. So that night she placed the goodman in a handsome apartment where there was a beautiful bed with a soft feather mattress, on which he slept more soundly than ever he had done in his life. When he was fast asleep the cunning hostess entered the room and stole the napkin, leaving one of similar appearance in ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... (holding out his leg) a chain fastened to a great iron ring which bound me to another man. During my time I had to live thus with three different convicts. I slept on a wooden bench; I had to work extraordinarily hard to earn a little mattress called a serpentin. Each dormitory contains eight hundred men. Each bed, called a tolard, holds twenty-four men, chained in couples. Every night the chain of each couple is passed round another great chain which ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... and my bed-place overboard, for I was in no danger of being washed out of my bed, as it required no little management to emerge from it at pleasure. This berth of mine was commonly called a doghouse (a box about six feet long, four high, and two broad,) containing a mattress fitted about 18 inches from the deck, above which there was a sliding door and curtain, scarcely large enough to admit an ordinary sized man. I found it, however, much more pleasant in fine weather than sleeping below, where the ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... his shells were flying all around us. The cookhouse was only about 20 yards off and I wondered if Scotty would now loosen up a bit, and I stepped over leaving Lawrence in charge of the gun. The cook had crawled under his bunk, which was merely a slight wire mattress raised a couple of feet off the floor. There was a dixie of hot tea standing near and I started to help myself to a drink. He saw what I was doing and with chattering teeth told me he would report ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... three rooms thrown into one,[117] and newly decorated. If there are only two rooms available, a third room is built for the occasion. The presents, which have been mentioned above, are set out on two trays. Besides these, the bridegroom's clothes are hung up upon clothes-racks. The mattress and bedclothes are placed in a closet. The bride's effects must all be arranged by the women who are sent on a previous day for the purpose, or it may be done whilst the bride is changing her clothes. The shrine for the image of the family ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... no more, but followed Anthony, who made a dash through the further room, and into another. There, on a mattress, crouched two forlorn figures, veiled as if in haste, and muffled in black satin habberahs such as Turkish ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... better to sleep on one or other side than on the back. The head should be somewhat raised, and a mattress is better than a feather bed. The bedclothes should be sufficient, but not too heavy. Light tends to prevent sleep, as do loud or abrupt sounds, but monotonous sounds ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... although his bunk mattress wasn't as soft as Ma's eiderdown comforts. He liked everything—until the sergeant had cussed at him ...
— Sonny • Rick Raphael
... Mr Squeers yawned fearfully, and opined that it was high time to go to bed; upon which signal, Mrs Squeers and the girl dragged in a small straw mattress and a couple of blankets, and arranged them into a couch ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... cry now, her tears all came when she was alone, and when Mary said something of being so sorry for her headache, she said, "Oh! it's only with knocking one's head against a mattress like mad people," in such a matter-of-fact voice, that Mary for a moment wondered whether she had really ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flax and tow, made in America of cotton, in checks or plaids, and used for furniture covering and mattress making. The town of Osnaburg, in Germany, made ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... The mattress was full of lumps and hollows. Hanneh Breineh lay cramped and miserable, unable to stretch out her limbs. For years she had been accustomed to hair mattresses and ample woolen blankets, so that though she ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... picture I once saw depicting the raising of Lazarus. His eyes were rolling, too, in wild delirium, and after gazing at us fixedly for a second or two without a sign of recognition on his pallid face, he fell back prostrate again on the mattress, crying out in a pitiful wail, "Alas, for the ship! Too ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... slowly taken in his surroundings—the stone walls, the cold floor, the barred window—and pitiless memory had dragged back his thoughts amongst the vivid horrors of the last forty-eight hours. It was all there, written in letters of fire. He shrunk back upon his mattress and buried his face in his hands, whilst every instinct of manliness fought against the sobs which seemed as though they would rend to pieces his ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... one grasps two hoops near the head, and, with an agile spring, throws body and feet into the canvas bed. This requires a knack, and is learned only after a more or less painful experience. A three-inch mattress and two blankets go with each outfit. For sheets a bag-like mattress cover is used, and, in lieu of the downy pillows of home, the sailor must be content with his shoes rolled up inside his trousers or flannel shirt. With it all, however, the naval hammock is very comfortable. There ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... through which there was just then entering a gentle breeze. Two similar openings faced these in the opposite side wall, and under each of the four windows there was a long wooden bench carrying a flat mattress cushion. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... Shelton managed to make his patients do it, but my guess is that he must have been a very intimidating guy. Shelton was a body builder of some renown in his day. I bet Shelton's patients kept a few books and magazines under their mattress and only took them out when he wasn't looking. If I had tried to enforced this type of sensory deprivation, I know my patients would have grabbed their clothes and run, vowing never to fast again. I think it is most ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... reef, the waves making a complete breach over her, and leaving her at the merciless sea. Thad uttered an unearthly shriek, and clung to Phil, who, in turn, clung to the iron grating of the companion-way. The cook had secured a mattress, the cabin-boy a door, and Mr. Herdic—but Mr. Herdic was gone; so, too, was Don Casimer, ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... out of the pantry window at the forest, shuddered, cursed it and every separate tree in it; cursed Quintana, too, wishing him black mischance. No; it was settled. He'd take his chance here in the pantry. ... And there must be a mattress ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... hard straw mattress, almost in shadow, lay Jarima, his face covered with blood, which oozed in ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... with a broken back has been moved to a hospital near his home so his family can see him. We sent him on a mattress, fixed up with pillows and cushions so that he did not suffer ...
— 'My Beloved Poilus' • Anonymous
... totally differs from any other sleigh in the wide world. Imagine a sack of coarse matting about four feet deep suspended from a frame of rough wooden poles in a horizontal triangle, which also forms a seat for the driver. Into this bag the traveller first lowers his luggage, then his mattress, pillows, and furs, and finally enters himself, lying at full length upon his belongings. There is a thick felt apron which can be pulled completely over its occupant at night-time or in stormy weather. This sounds warm and comfortable, but is precisely ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... train run right through the town she's in, but Elijah says after all his efforts he has n't swelled the famine fund thirty-five cents this week. He says Clightville has give nine dollars an' Meadville has give fifteen dollars an' two barrels an' a mattress, if anybody wants it C. O. D., an' here we are stuck hard at six dollars an' a quarter an' two pennies as the minister's twins brought just after they choked ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... Tom, the little that was left of his physical endurance gave way, his illness got the upper hand, and he took to his bed—all he could have for bed, that is—namely, the sofa in the sitting-room, widened out with chairs, and a mattress over all. There he lay, and their landlady had enough to do. Not that either of her patients was exacting; they were both too ill and miserable for that. It is the self-pitiful, self-coddling invalid ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... on the ladder and press against the ceiling directly over it, a well-oiled trap door will open soundlessly and lead you into Lola's bedroom above the shop. In front of the window with the blue curtain is a worn bed, the hard mattress neatly covered with a counterpane. At the head of the mattress is a mended tear. It is in this mattress that Lola hides photographs of extraordinary military and naval importance. ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... people came in to help, and a comfortable supper was ready spread for the travellers on their arrival. Mrs. Forcythe was cheered by this kindness, but Mary could not be cheerful. She had to sleep upon a mattress laid on the floor. At another time this would have been fun, but now it did not seem funny at all; it was only part and parcel of the misery of coming to live in Redding. She cried herself to sleep, and came down in the morning ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... former job shut up shop quite early. At nine o'clock I was alone in the store-room building; and at a little before ten I put out the lights and lay down on the office cot with a sawed-off Winchester—a part of the pay-office armament—lying on the mattress beside me. ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... our readers who attended the last Fair of the American Institute, will recall an article in the furniture department, which attracted much attention on account of its novelty and utility. We refer to the wire mattress, or bed, manufactured by the Woven Wire Mattress Company, of Hartford, Conn. To the ordinary mind a new invention is interesting or not, in proportion to the probability of its coming into every-day use, and many a good housewife ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... sobriety and frugality of life. When away from his headquarters he used to pitch his tent within the precincts of the most sacred temples, thus making the gods witnesses of the most private details of his life. Among thousands of soldiers, moreover, there was scarcely one that used a worse mattress than Agesilaus. With regard to extremes of heat and cold, he seemed so constituted as to be able to enjoy whatever weather the gods might send. It was a pleasant and enjoyable spectacle for the Greek inhabitants ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... life. In the first place, I had the amusement of destroying the vermin I had caught in the Felucca. As soon as I had got clear of these, by means of changing my clothes and linen, I proceeded to furnish the chamber I had chosen. I made a good mattress with my waistcoats and shirts; my napkins I converted, by sewing them together, into sheets; my robe de chambre into a counterpane; and my cloak into a pillow. I made myself a seat with one of my trunks laid flat, and a table with the other. I took out some writing paper ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... has his own mattress," she told him, "or rather one of the hospital ones. He was carried straight into the ambulance from ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at him. He was dazed. Things didn't become clearer when he saw that a cop had slit open his pillow and was sifting its contents through his fingers. Another cop was ripping the seams of his mattress to look inside. Somebody else was going carefully through a little pile of notes that Nedda had written, squinting at them as if he were afraid of seeing ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... the Muhammadans. It is said that a good Rajput in the Central Provinces must not drive the plough, his wife must not use the rehnta or spinning-wheel, and his household may not have the kathri or gudri, the mattress made of old pieces of cloth or rag sewn one on top of the other, which is common in the poorer ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... that met my eyes was astonishing. Clothes, books, papers, were scattered over the floor and bed and chairs. The carpet had been partly ripped up, the mattress torn apart, the closet cleared out, and every corner of ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... said Richard Gyles, used daily to reprove and check the said Richard Gyles, and inquire of him where was more of his coin and money; and at the last the said abbot thought he lived too long, and made the sick man, after much sorry keeping, to be taken from his feather-bed, and laid upon a cold mattress, and kept his friends ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... had returned with Marcella from Widrington Gaol that afternoon, she had been so ill that a doctor had been sent for. He had bade them make up her bed downstairs in the warm; and accordingly a mattress had been laid on the settle, and she was now stretched upon it. Her huddled form, the staring whiteness of the narrow face and closed eyelids, thrown out against the dark oak of the settle, and ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... domestic animals. The furniture of these luxurious abodes consists of a hand-loom, two or three iron pots, a few earthen vessels, and some wooden spoons. The bedding is a coarse woollen blanket, which serves as a cloak in rainy or wet weather, and as a mattress and coverlet for the whole family, without distinction ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... boys," he said, "as a bed-maker I can beat the owner of that prehistoric old corn-husk mattress out in the suburbs with one ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... Odyssey and the AEneid rests on the same basis. The ship of their enemy Lichas on which Encolpius and his companions are cooped up reminds them of the cave of the Cyclops; Giton hiding from the town-crier under a mattress is compared to Ulysses underneath the sheep and clinging to its wool to escape the eye of the Cyclops, while the woman whose charms engage the attention of Encolpius at Croton bears the name of Circe. It seems to be clear from these reminiscences ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... says Jimmy. "I was tidying up down aft and I found a 'ole in the underneath side of 'is mattress and I shoved it in there, and poked it in with ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... light through the cracks in the attic door, and walked in. To my amazement, the first person I saw was a woman of about thirty-five, in pearl-gray Quaker dress—one of your quiet, good-looking people. She was seated on a stool beside a straw mattress upon which lay a black woman. There were three others crowded close around a small stove, which was red-hot—an unusual spectacle in this street. Altogether a most ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... aside and looked on while the other part slowly and painfully struggled out of its clothes and into its pajamas. Also he saw the other part, after it had carefully secreted the wrapped package of papers under the mattress, beat the pillows feebly and bury its head in them. After that ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... all that coast. The life which Xavier led, contributed full as much. His food was the same with that of the poorest people, rice and water. His sleep was but three hours at the most, and that in a fisher's cabin on the ground: for he had soon made away with the mattress and coverlet, which the viceroy had sent him from Goa. The remainder of the night he passed with God, or ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... rough mats covered only with a sheet, under coverlets made of dagswain or hopharlots (I use their own terms), and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow. If it were so that our fathers—or the good man of the house had within seven years after his marriage purchased a mattress or flock bed, and thereto a stack of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the lord of the town, that peradventure lay seldom in a bed of down or whole feathers, so well were they content, and with such base kind of furniture: ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... monks soon after dropped into silence; but Emily remained at the casement, watching the setting moon, and the valley sinking into deep shade, and willing to prolong her present state of mind. At length she retired to her mattress, and ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... of this straw mattress," he said; "for our rule does not allow us to undress, we may only take off our shoes, therefore we sleep entirely clad, our head wrapped in ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... English dinner in proper style; now drawing the wine; now changing our plates; pressing us to eat; saying, 'You are at home.' Dinner over, we sat, and drank, and smoked, and talked cheerfully, till, tired and weary, we expressed a wish to retire, and were shown to a private room. A crimson silk mattress, embroidered with gold, was my couch: it was covered with white gold-embroidered mats and pillows. Our men fared equally well, and enjoyed their wine, a luxury to us; our stock of wine and spirits having been ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... insensible; carried to the hotel on a mattress laid on planks, borne by half a dozen workmen, and the doctor was summoned immediately. He was laid in bed, and all means were tried to restore consciousness. But as soon as he came to his senses he demanded to be brought home. The doctor thought it dangerous ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... room stood an iron camp-bed without curtains. There, on a worn mattress, lay King Friedrich, the terror of Europe, without coverlet, in an old blue roquelaure. He had a big cocked-hat, with a white feather [hat aged, worn soft as duffel, equal to most caps; "feather" is not perpendicular, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... presence. On being told to come in they leave their footgear on the doorstep, enter my little study, prostrate themselves; and we all squat down together on the floor, which is in all Japanese houses like a soft mattress. The servant brings zabuton or small cushions to kneel upon, and ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Corinth, Memphis, Alexandria, and half a dozen more. At last after a week's travel they reached Cossier, the little mud-walled village on the shores of the Red Sea. Here Bruce embarked in a small boat, the planks of which were sewn together instead of nailed, with a "sort of straw mattress as a sail," for the emerald mines described by Pliny, but he was driven back by a tremendous storm. Determined to survey the Red Sea, he sailed to the north, and after landing at Tor at the foot of Mount Sinai, he sailed down the ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... house he found Bard a corner room with a pile of straw in the corner by way of a mattress. There he spread out some blankets, wished his guest a good sleep, ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... her middle, evidently ready to go to bed. Could she put him up for the night? Why, yes, she supposed so—and she rolled off into another room. And soon he was lying in a tiny chamber, in a bed with a mountainous mattress and a quilt. There was a fresh smell from the juniper twigs strewed about the newly-washed floor, and the cheeses, which stood in rows all round the shelf-lined walls. Ah! he had slept in many places and fashions—at sea in a Lofoten ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... Henrietta spring to her feet, and hastening to the window beheld the melancholy procession; Fred carried on a mattress by Uncle Geoffrey and three of the labourers; Philip Carey walking at one side, and on the other Mrs. Frederick Langford leaning on ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... suppose you've lived pretty well?" he said. "Not epicureanly," I answered, "but still well." "I'm afraid you won't like our hospitality," he rejoined. "I suppose not," I replied grimly. "However," he continued, "I shall put you on third-class diet at once, and order you a mattress." What the third-class diet was the reader shall learn presently. The second-class diet, which I should otherwise have had for the first month, consists of nothing but bread and sloppy meal-and-water, three times a day. Mr. Kemp had to put up with this wretched fare for a while, and he tells ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... away the prisoner could see the startled eyes of fear and horror that had rested on him. As Curly kicked his foot out of the stirrup to dismount a light spring wagon rolled past him. In its bed were a mattress and pillows. The driver whipped up the horse and went across the prairie toward Dry Sandy Creek. Evidently he was going to ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... with them, on the top of their luggage; and we drove off in state, as much pleased at riding in that novel place as though we were accustomed to ride in wheelbarrows. Miriam was in a hollow between a flour barrel and a mattress; and I at the end, astride, I am afraid, of a tremendous bundle, for my face was down the road and each foot resting very near the sides of the cart. I tried to make a better arrangement, though, after a while. These servants were good enough to lend us their umbrella, without which I ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... it was soon surpassed in fearfulness, for the work of desolation was not half completed. The Irish population were the chief sufferers up to this hour. It was heart-rending to see the women rushing hither and thither, trying to save their few possessions. Here, a poor creature was dragging a mattress, followed by several little crying children, her face the picture of despair; there, another, with her family, stood over the remnants of her scanty stock. A poor woman, who was in the habit of working for us, lived near the corner of Cross and Fore Streets. She had five children and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... very remarkable effigies of Osiris which have come to light in Egyptian cemeteries. Thus in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes there was found the tomb of a royal fan-bearer who lived about 1500 B.C. Among the rich contents of the tomb there was a bier on which rested a mattress of reeds covered with three layers of linen. On the upper side of the linen was painted a life-size figure of Osiris; and the interior of the figure, which was waterproof, contained a mixture of vegetable mould, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer |
