"Ironing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... black servants are cheap down in this region, and by the way, dear, when you go up to Crabtree again, you must start an inquiry for a good colored cook among your lady friends. Tell them you want a good one, who understands washing and ironing and all about cooking. At present we boys do all the cooking down here and we send our laundry up to Crabtree, where there are only three Chinamen to ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... and for that reason doubly effective. She sat down in Mrs. Simmons's kitchen, where the good woman was ironing, and said: ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... sorry not to be in mourning on the night of her funeral, but I have just been to put some flowers on her grave, and I took it off afore going that the damp mid not spoil the crape. You see, she was bad a long time, and I have to be careful, and do washing and ironing for a living. She hurt her side with wringing up the large sheets she had to wash for the Castle ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... the baby. Then she did one of "the bits of washing," that came from a family in whose service she had been before she married BOB, and that family's connection. And this occupied her fully, what with soaking, and mangling and ironing, until it was time to carry BOB his dinner. In the pauses of her work she had been able to cook it, and it was quite ready to go with her when she was prepared to take it. It was a long walk (in the rain) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... high chair as good as gold, a precious, watching me doing of the ironing. Get along with you, do - ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... was so sad and so beautiful, so full of an ecstatic melancholy, that I dropped the curtain. And my thought ranged lovingly over our household—prim, regular, and perfect: my old aunt embroidering in the breakfast-room, and Rebecca and Lucy ironing in the impeachable kitchen, and not one of them with the least suspicion that Adam had not really waked up one morning minus a rib. I wandered in fancy all over the house—the attics, my aunt's bedroom so miraculously ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... proprietorial pride. He spent a good deal of his time trying to think of ways in which he could circumvent the choking sensation that often came to him. Marcella brought some comfort by placing the kitchen ironing board across the bed, resting on the backs of two chairs so that he could lean forward on it. Sometimes he slept so, his grey head jerking forward ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... dozen times and strained and stirred and mashed and salted and peppered, he begins to understand why his wife is so tired after getting a Sunday dinner. And when he thinks of other days, washing days and ironing and baking and scrubbing and sewing days, why, if he's anyway decent he begins to suspect that he's darn lucky to get a full-grown woman to do all that work for just her room and board. And when he stops to count the times she's tied his necktie, darned ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... again I recall That hour we spent by the weir of the paper-mill Watching together the curving thunderous fall Of frothing amber, bemused by the roar until My mind was as blank as the speckless sheets that wound On the hot steel ironing-rollers perpetually turning In the humming dark rooms of the mill: all sense and discerning By the stunning and dazzling oblivion ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... my things," she replied to Mrs. Gartney's advance of assistance. "I've just come over to tell you what I'm going to do. I've made up my mind to take the minister to board. And when the washing and ironing's out of the way, next week, I shall fix up a room for ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... wash-room are busy rubbing at the tubs. Some girls are starching, and others are sending baskets down on the elevator for girls below to hang in the drying-room. Others are in the assorting-room putting away clothes-bags into numerous boxes. The ironing-room farther on is filled with busy workers. Days come during every week when time is spent in the study of laundry chemistry. Rust and mildew stains and scorching are some of the problems of the ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... you're falling into the ways of the country very well, however!" retorted Nora as she struggled across to the table with the heavy ironing-board. ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... Storey, with a Piazza running round, but a huge number of Rooms and Yards—in the suburbs of Kingston. There did I take up my abode. She had at least twenty Negro and Mulotter Women and Girls that worked for her at the Washing, and at Starching and Ironing, for the Mill was always going with her. 'Twas wash, wash, wash, and wring, wring, wring, and scrub, scrub, scrub, all day and all night too, when the harbour was full of ships. Not that she ever touched Soapsuds ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... no such foreign body as a nurse. It employs one maid of all work, who helps the housewife wherever help is needed, whether it is in the kitchen or the nursery. The mother spends her time with her children, playing with them when she has leisure, cooking and ironing and saving for them, and for her husband all through her busy day. Modern Germans like to tell you that young women no longer devote themselves to these simple duties, but if you use your eyes you will see that most women do their work as faithfully as ever. There is ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... a-coming in!" exclaimed one of the women, glancing over her ironing-board to the yard. "What do ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... matter? You been overworking again, ironing my shirts and collars when they ought to ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... swoon— her head fell back, and I heard her mutter, "So vulgar! so ungenteel!" However, she recovered herself, and appeared to be for some time in deep thought. At last she rose up, ordered me to fetch something extra for supper, and recommenced her ironing. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... father was drowned in the ford when we had the freshet last spring. The Ramapo, that looks so peaceful now, overflowed its banks then, and ran like a mill-race. I don't know how they manage, but Archie is kept at school, and his mother does everything from ironing white frocks for summer boarders to making jellies and preserves for people in ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... Tabitha's hurrying steps outside, and the fresh young voice thrilling over those familiar words brought the woman to her senses, and with a cry of desperation, Aunt Maria caught up the heavy ironing board in the corner and banged it with all her strength full upon the hissing coil on the floor, regardless of the fate of the cat. But the hysterical scream of the woman had broken the charm, and the frightened ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... lately-married pair, young folks full of energy and ambition. The husband chopped down trees, ploughed, or ditched his land, as if he were working for a wager, and the wife was equally active and industrious. Her bright tin milk-pans were out sunning early every morning, her churning and ironing were done in the cool part of the forenoons, her front yard was always neatly swept, and the borders were bright with balsams, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... "What a fright you gave me! I couldn't think who it could be. Come in! Sit down! Can you find a free chair? Saturday is my work day. I've been darning stockings, and trimming a hat, and ironing a blouse, and washing lace, and writing letters all in a rush. I love a muddle on Saturdays. It's such a change after routine all the week. What do you think of the hat? Seven and sixpence, all told. I flatter myself it looks worth every penny of ten. Don't pull down that cloth. ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... was deeper than the first time; for it was still early morning. And now I stood by the window, put my arms on the window-sill and said, "Good morning, Mariandel, sweetmeats!" And she stood before an ironing board which rested on the windowsill and the table, and was ironing with a charcoal flat-iron. She put the iron down on the rest, gave me her firm, warm hand, and said, "Bom dia, senhor doutor! Passa bem?" and her eye seemed to beam more cordially than ever, and yet could not express ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... lay the article on a bare table, or ironing-board, cover it with a damp cloth, and iron it. The sharpest eye will fail to detect a rent, when carefully darned in ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... Chicago, did when they were abroad, last year," remarked Bess with a laugh. "There were so many of them that the laundry bills were dreadful, so they concluded to wash out their own handkerchiefs. Of course they had no way of ironing them, so, while they were still very wet, they would plaster them up against the window-panes in the sun, to dry. They said the embroidered ones would come out beautifully, just as if nicely pressed on the wrong side. It got so they would look at the ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... that they wished to have a deed executed. With great presence of mind, Abijah concealed every symptom of growing palpitation, and led the way out of the store into the kitchen of his house near by, where Mrs. Witherpee was busy ironing, and several little Witherpees at 'sixes and sevens' about ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sister used to send Josiah out in the morning to work, he would come back in the evening with his pay that he had earned in the blacksmith shop and give it to her, and Aunt Caroline would bring her money, too, that she had made by a hard day's, washing and ironing. Oh, yes, it is all wrong and dreadful, but we will treat them well and wait for the day to set ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... with the stern realities of life. Her third baby was born when the first was three years and two months old. That summer she boarded eleven factory hands, who roomed in her house, and she did all the cooking, washing and ironing, with no help except that of a thirteen-year-old girl, who went to school and did "chores" night and morning. The cooking for the family of sixteen was done on the hearth in front of the fire-place and in a big brick oven at the side. Daniel Anthony was a generous ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... it off and wraped it up in a towel that was drying in front of the fire, and laid it on a bundle of clothes ready for ironing that was on the table. Then he ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... hall, and with a return of her aggrieved, abandoned feeling (you must remember that her stomach was very empty) she began to try to find her way downstairs. She soon found the steps, went down them one at a time, and pushed open the door at the foot. Cousin Ann, the brown-haired one, was ironing near the stove. She nodded and smiled as the child came into the room, and said, ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... wore away. All other errands were done, and Meg and her mother busy at some necessary needlework, while Beth and Amy got tea, and Hannah finished her ironing with what she called a 'slap and a bang', but still Jo did not come. They began to get anxious, and Laurie went off to find her, for no one knew what freak Jo might take into her head. He missed her, however, and she came walking in with a very queer expression of countenance, for there was ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... sufficient to deter the dainty from penetrating beyond—they went, and into a miserable room where was scarcely space for them to stand, so huddled was it with broken furniture and ragged children. A fire was burning in a shattered grate, and an untidy woman stood ironing by a table whereon was the remnant of their meager dinner. Her husband crouched over the coals as if the day was not warm and sunny. His clothes hung about his limbs in large folds, and his sunken eyes told that disease was making fearful ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... dreams that she burns her hands while ironing, it foretells she will have illness or jealousy to disturb her peace. If she scorches the clothes, she will have a rival who will cause her much displeasure and suspicions. If the irons seem too cold, she will lack affection ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... a nearby apartment, Gervaise saw a tumbled bed on which a man was sprawled, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. As the door closed behind her, Gervaise saw the hand-written card: "Mademoiselle Clemence, ironing." ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... dish towels. 2 floor cloths. 12 holders. Cheese cloth. Pudding cloth. Needles. Twine. Scissors. Skewers. Screw driver. Corkscrew. 1 doz. knives and forks. Hammer. Tacks and Nails. Ironing sheet and holder. Coal scuttle. Fire shovel. Coal sieve. Ash hod. Flat irons. Paper for cake tins. Wrapping paper. Small tub for laundry work. 6 ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... Miss Emma was ironing ruffles; she was tired and warm. "Helen will not care whether they are fluted or not," she said. "I will hurry them over." But after she heard about the knives, she ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the same air for every day of the week and Miss Jones is baking, ironing, or scrubbing. She is then sick or worse and ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... old black mammy was ironing in the sitting room, Kintchin came in at the door which always stood open, and looking about, slowly went up to the old woman and inquired if she ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... bosom or any other article has been scorched in ironing, lay it where bright sunshine will fall directly on it. ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... and went over the way. Here she found a somewhat tidy woman at work ironing. Nobody else in the room. She made known her errand. The woman ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... school-room from nine to twelve in the forenoon and from one till four in the afternoon was that of any ordinary school, except that the girls who prepared the meals were excused earlier than the others. One day in the week was devoted to washing and ironing down on the river-bank and in the shade of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... for luring maids from the smaller homes. Of course Mrs. Airedale and Mrs. Collie could afford to pay any wages at all. So now the best he could do was to have Mrs. Spaniel, the charwoman, come up from the village to do the washing and ironing, two days a week. The rest of the work he undertook himself. On a clear afternoon, when the neighbours were not looking, he would take his own shirts and things down to the pond—putting them neatly ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... lot," broke in Mrs. Welcome, hurriedly. "They do all their ironing at night. And that's all anyone could ask of them after they come home tired from ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... the third curls of gold, as pretty as Prue's, and black eyes; the youngest blue eyes and yellow curls. I never saw such a variety of beauty in one family. The mother was at the washtub, the oldest daughter was ironing, the second getting supper of potatoes and indian meal bread, the third beauty was brushing the youngest beauty's hair. As I stood and looked at them I thought, how many girls in this city would be vain if they owned their eyes and hair, and how God had thrown the beauty down among ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... something goes right in the shop, Douglass comes in and wakes me up. I dress up in a blanket for a court dress, and we wake up Lovey and play our royal visit. Do you blame me for not minding washing and ironing and cooking and toe-poking or dress-shrinking with a brother who ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Alix said. "If Peter's a stranger," she added animatedly, "what is an intimate friend? Peter walks through this house at all hours; you can't wash your hair or do a little ironing without having Peter under your feet; he borrows money from me; he bullies ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... Miss Robinson liked it; but hoped she "would not ask that family o'niggers,—that would make it so vulgar;" and she took a large pinch of Scotch snuff, and waddled off to finish her ironing. Mrs. Deacon Jackson—she was a second wife, with no children—hoped that "Sally Bright would not be asked, because her father was in the State Prison for passing counterfeit money; and the example would be bad, not friendly to law and order." But as Aunt Kindly ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... Bell and Bella returned home they found that Mary Erskine had made all the preparations necessary for the commencement of the school. She had made a desk for the two children by means of the ironing-board, which was a long and wide board, made very smooth on both sides. This board Mary Erskine placed across two chairs, having previously laid two blocks of wood upon the chairs in a line with the back side of the board, in ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... when, already tired from her work in the factory, she had stood sorting, sprinkling, folding, ironing, the two women got to a state where they scarcely dared to look at each other: just a passing glance, a hardish stare, but ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... to her ironing-table, as if she didn't care for company; and Dumps and Tot, seeing that she was tired of them, went back ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... ironing this time, but she would have put the flatiron back on the stove and taken her brother to the sitting room if he had permitted. "The idea of a man like you, Sears, havin' to sit on an old broken-down chair out here in the wash-shed," she ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... the white petticoat she was ironing, and gazed out of the doorway and down the valley with a warm light in her eyes and a glowing face. The snow-tipped mountains far above and away, the fir-covered, cedar-ranged foothills, and, lower down, the wonderful maple and ash woods, with their hundred ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... gentlemen can be accommodated with good board, washing, and ironing; or a gentleman and wife. Terms, $6 per week; or two single ladies. Apply at ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... went to interview the milk dealer; Jane was cold and went into the cottage to warm herself. "It is well I'm at ironing today," said Mrs. Brent, "for so I hev a good fire. Come your ways in, ma'am, and sit on the hearth. Let me make ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... table; that was a roundhouse, Maurice told Jacky. ("Why don't they have a square house?" Jacky said); and beneath the lounge—which was a tunnel, the bigger boy announced ("What is a tunnel?" said Jacky)—and over Lily's ironing board stretched between two stools; "That's a trestle." ("What grows trestles?" Jacky demanded.) Exercise, and a bombardment of questions, brought the perspiration out on Maurice's forehead. He took off his coat, and arranged the tracks so that the switches would ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... to be impressed the clerk turned tail and fled. The ghost returned by a short cut, and the clerk found his wife calmly ironing the parson's surplice. He did not return to ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... Nanny was a slattern, but only because she married into slavery. She was kept so busy washing and ironing for Sanders that she ceased to care how she looked herself. What did it matter whether her mutch was clean? Weaving and washing and cooking, doing the work of a breadwinner as well as of a housewife, hers was soon a body ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... enough to pay a Chinaman for "doing up" one of her pretty muslins. Neither had she the facilities for doing them herself, had she been skilled in that sort of labor; for even to do your own washing and ironing pre-supposes the usual conveniences of a laundry, and these did not belong to the furniture of the outside kitchen. She had not worn her linen lawn since the visit to the mill. The dust which blew freely through every crack ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... with my new pen, and now begin one in prose to you. I have just got a letter from an anonymous admirer of Stepping Heavenward, enclosing ten dollars to give away; I wish it was a thousand! The children are in tribulation about their kitten, who committed suicide by knocking the ironing-board on to herself. H. made a diagram of the position of the board that I might fully comprehend the situation, and then showed me how the corpse lay. They were not willing to part with the remains, and buried them in ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... disciplined mind, a fine artistic taste, a delicate but healthy body, and a pair of willing, if unskilled, hands. To her surprise, she discovered that the work for which she had so often lightly given orders was beyond her strength. Try as she would, she could not accomplish the task of washing and ironing table napkins and delicate embroidered linen pieces in the way she knew they should be done. Will power can accomplish a good deal, but it cannot always make up for ignorance, and the girl who had mastered difficult subjects in college, and astonished music masters in the old world with her ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... thanked! cost you one penny during the twelve years I've been with you, and you have had the pleasure of my company into the bargain. I could have earned my own living anywhere with the work that I've done here,—washing, ironing, looking after the linen, going to market, cooking, taking care of your interests before everything, slaving myself to death from morning till night,—and this ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... them. An old-fashioned, tall spinning wheel, dirty and unused, sat in the corner. A rough pine table was in the middle of the floor and a smaller one against the wall. On this side table sat two rusty flat-irons, and against it leaned an ironing board. A dirty piece of turkey-red calico hung on a string for a portiere at the opening which evidently led into a sort of kitchen somewhere in ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... rows of similar windows opposite—rows of the same sort of windows that run for miles and miles in London. In one a man sat smoking in his shirtsleeves, from another a slavey leaned out watching a fourwheeler that had stopped next door, in a third a woman sat sewing, and in a fourth a woman was ironing, with a glimpse of a bedstead behind her. And all outside was ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... who were not buying; but our pride was brought down in the little shop where the proprietress was too much concerned in cooking her dinner (it smelled delicious) to mind our wish for a very cheap green vase, inestimably Spanish after we got it home. However, in another shop where the lady was ironing her week's wash on the counter, a lady friend who was making her an afternoon call got such a vase down for us and transacted the negotiation out of pure good will for both parties ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... began to feel stifled in the house, where she had been busy ironing curtains, and tying on her old straw hat went out for a breath of air on the road. There was a light mist over the watercourses, veiling the pollards and thorn trees and the reddening thickets of Ansdore's bush—a flavour ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... and again, and yet again, advances with the same announcement of his object and purpose, to which he receives similar evasive answers from Janet's parents, who successively represent her as up the stair "bleaching," "drying," and "ironing clothes." At last ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... bench and tools were placed just underneath it, and above his head a linnet hopped and twittered in a green cage. Kit's perambulator occupied one corner, while Kit herself, seated at the table in a high chair, was busily engaged in ironing out some ragged doll-garments with a tiny bent flat-iron. Anna regarded her pitifully—the small shrunken figure and sunken chest, and the thin white face with its halo of red curls. But Kit was almost too ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... little bit of meat. Two little girls were boiling potatoes in old tin cans. In another room set apart for washing a sturdy little long-haired revolutionary was cleaning a shirt. A woman with her hair done up in a blue handkerchief was very carefully ironing a blouse. Another was busy stewing sheets, or something of that kind, in a big cauldron. And all the time people from all parts of the hotel were coming with their pitchers and pans, from fine copper kettles to disreputable ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... he visited his lovely and all unconscious mistress the next day, but the fair lady was busy ironing.—"I shall see her again this evening," thought he, as he turned slowly towards the town; and see her that evening he did. They rambled out towards the cape, or promontory, almost invariably the scene of their summer evening ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Bethany imagined. As a matter of fact, a more corrupt Chinaman had never been smuggled into America. Ostensibly in the laundry business, and really a master workman in that line, the astute Chink had long since relinquished the labor over the tubs and ironing-board to Hop Wah, his silent partner. Ah Moy's chief interest in the establishment lay in its cavernous sub-cellar, where he conducted gaming tables and a smoking-'parlor' with flattering success. The gods evidently smiled upon him, for his den seemed to be unknown to the police, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... labour and of a vineyard were worthless. As for love, I ought to tell you that living with a woman who has read Spencer and has followed you to the ends of the earth is no more interesting than living with any Anfissa or Akulina. There's the same smell of ironing, of powder, and of medicines, the same curl-papers every morning, ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... that Lizzie had faithfully carried out her part of the bargain. The three babies were done up in bright-coloured calico dresses; she had spent the morning in washing and ironing these garments—also her own dress, which was half-red and half-green, and of generous, almost crinoline proportions. Lizzie herself was built on that scale, with broad hips and bosom, big brown eyes and heavy dark hair. She was a fine ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... to th' 'men'ment is carried," announced the Orchid Hunter. He untwisted his legs and clapped his hands. The paper walls slid apart, the little Nezans, giggling, bowing, ironing out their knees with open palms, came tripping and stumbling ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... there were a Medical Inspector in the army who was not a first rate judge of the art of folding and ironing a sheet or pillow-slip; of the particular tuck which brought out the outlines of the corners of a mattress, as seen through a counterpane; and of the art and mystery of cleaning a floor. It did seem as if they had all reached office through ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... daughter was busy at some ironing in the outer room; she was a dull, lack-lustre creature, and though she comprehended the gifts that had been brought her, seemed hardly to have life enough to thank the donor. That wasn't quite like a fairy tale, Daisy thought. No doubt this poor woman must ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... she had reason to think herself far more fortunate than her associates. Her intelligence was great. Ambition was awakened in her before she was ten years of age, when she began to learn and to recite poems—learning them, as has been said, "between the wash-tub and the ironing-board," and reciting them to the admiration of older and wiser people than she. Even at ten she was a very beautiful child, with great lambent eyes, an exquisite complexion, and a lovely form, while she had the further gift of a voice that thrilled the listener ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... enough to understand. A more unlovely existence than that in one of these tenements it would be hard to imagine. Everywhere is the stench of the kerosene stove that is forever burning, serving for cooking, heating, and ironing alike, until the last atom of oxygen is burned out of the close air. Oil is cheaper than coal. The air shaft is too busy carrying up smells from below to bring any air down, even if it is not hung full ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... leave the Hospital without a thought of the unselfish women who had foregone sleep to patch jackets and sew on missing buttons. There were haversacks of coarse canvas for the Volunteers, finished and partly made, with ammunition-pouches and bandoliers. And Sister Tobias stood ironing at the deal table, partly screened by a line of drying linen, while Sister Mary-Joseph turned the mangle, and the little brisk novice, her round cheeks no longer rosy, folded with active hands. The Dop Doctor's keen quick glance took ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... idea came to him as he passed a Chinese laundry in which lights still burned and irons still thumped on an ironing board. It was an audacious one, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... in his chair by the window. It was six o'clock, supper time, when he entered the kitchen. Keziah, looking up from the ironing board, saw him. He was white and worn and grim, but he held out ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rinsed well after the same manner in clean water. When the lace is clean, apply a very weak solution of gum arabic and stand the bottle in the sunshine to dry. Take off the lace very carefully when perfectly dry. Instead of ironing, lay it between the white leaves of a heavy book; or, if you are in a hurry, iron on flannel between a few thicknesses of fine muslin. Done up in this way, lace collars will wear longer, stay clean longer, and have a rich, new, lacy look that they ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... you've made me run for nothing, with my poor old crutch," she went on, as he stopped laughing. "The other day you told me your mother was sick abed, and wanted to see me; and I left everything and hobbled over here; and didn't I find her ironing clothes in the kitchen, as well a woman as she ever was in her life, you ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... on a piece of soft flannel, ironing on the wrong side. If flannel is not at hand, ...
— Things Mother Used To Make • Lydia Maria Gurney
... proprietors themselves; others were reduced to even greater straits and became even more wretched. Such wretchedness Nekhludoff saw in a number of shoemakers that he saw working near the window of a basement; in the lean, pale, disheveled washerwomen ironing with bare hands before open windows from which soap-laden steam poured out; in two painters, aproned and bare-footed, who were covered with paint from temple to heel. In their sunburnt, sinewy, weak hands, bared above the elbows, they carried a bucket of paint and incessantly cursed each ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... promises to pay. Joined with this is an establishment for washing clothes, where the poor can go and hire, for almost nothing, good tubs, water ready heated, the use of an apparatus for rinsing, drying, and ironing, all so admirably arranged that a poor woman can in three hours get through an amount of washing and ironing that would, under ordinary circumstances, occupy three or four days. Especially the drying closets I contemplated with great satisfaction, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... glad to hear that you are to be transient from Mayfield so very soon, and was taken in by the first part of your letter.[24] Indeed, for aught I know, you may be treating me, as Slipslop says, with 'ironing' even now. I shall say nothing of the shock, which had nothing of humeur in it; as I am apt to take even a critic, and still more a friend, at his word, and never to doubt that I have been writing cursed nonsense, if they say so. There was a mental reservation ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... his travels. That woman's a treasure, little un. She's a capital cook; and what a wonderful thing it is that it comes so natural to a woman, whether she's white or black, to like washing shirts. Do you know, I believe that Tanta Sal would take to starching and ironing if she had ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... and consoled herself by giving the apprentice, who was ironing hose and towels by her side, a little push. Gervaise had a cap belonging to Mme Boche in her hand and was ironing the crown with a round ball, when a tall, bony woman came ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Charles came down with the dinner things about half-past nine, and said he was not wanted upstairs any more. Charles went to bed shortly afterwards—he sleeps in one of the two rooms off the kitchen. I went to my own bedroom before ten, after first telling Ann, the servant, who was doing some ironing in the kitchen, to turn off the gas at the meter if the gentlemen retired before she finished, but not to bother if they were still sitting up. It had been decided that the young gentleman should occupy the bedroom next to Mr. Glenthorpe, ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... had gone down behind the mountain and the workers had departed, some traversing the fields and others disappearing by invisible paths in the near-by wood. The two sisters had taken the finished quilt from its wooden frame, and were carefully ironing out the wrinkles preparatory to adding it to the useless stack of its kind in the ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... bathroom. The married soldiers have a living-room, scullery, and one, two, or three bedrooms according to the size of their families. A laundry is provided adjacent to the married quarters, equipped with washing-troughs, wringer, drying-closet, and ironing-room; and the women are encouraged to use this in preference to doing washing ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... very good. I keep our own rooms well ventilated by opening the windows, but no window is ever opened in the halls or passages, and they are so overheated by a great furnace, that they make me faint and sick. The air is like that of a pre-Adamite ironing-day in full blast. Your respected parent is immensely popular in Boston society, and its cordiality and unaffected heartiness are charming. I wish I could carry it ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... to work in the field when I was able. That was when I was in the country. When I came to the city I usually did washing and ironing. Now I can't do anything. All the people I used to work for is dead. There was one woman in particular. She was a good woman, too. I don't have any help at all now, except my son. He has a family of his own—wife and seven children. Right now, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... certainly the most laborious day, as she always did her washing and ironing on Sunday morning, it being, as she said, the only leisure day she had; for on the other days she went about the country telling fortunes, and selling dream-books and wicked songs. Neither her husband's nor her children's clothes were ever mended, and if Sunday, ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... definitely aware that he was inventive till he came into daily contact with Uncle Charles's teapot. In his boyhood he had often fixed up little things for Edith,—she was three years older than he, and was even then canning and preserving and ironing,—little simplifications and alleviations of her labour; but they had been just toys, things that had amused him to put together and that he forgot as soon as they were done. But the teapot revealed to him clearly what his forehead was there for. He would not and could not ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... his general cleanliness; I am reminded of one or two exceptions, which I think, however, were errors of zeal. His manner of sprinkling clothes in preparing them for ironing was peculiar. He would fill his mouth with perfectly pure water from a glass beside him, and then, by one dexterous movement of his lips in a prolonged expiration, squirt the water in an almost invisible misty shower on the article before him. ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... permit the physician to use his right hand,—that will be the right side of the patient as she lies in bed. One objection to a double bed is its tendency to sag. This tendency can be obviated however by placing an ironing board under the spring from side to side, or by using shelves from a book case. This expedient will support the mattress, thereby rendering the bed firm and free from any sagging tendency. The position of the bed in the room should be such ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... everything cooked in the nicest possible way, and with pleasant variety." Passing from the kitchen the care of the different rooms of the house is taken up—the chambers, the sitting-room and the storeroom; instructions are given for making "blue Monday" less blue; the arts of starching and ironing are discussed; and a chapter is given to the mending and darning basket. Other portions of the book are devoted to "Company Days," "Shopping," "Sickness in the House," "Making the best of Things," and "Helps that are Helps," the servant-girl question forming the subject of the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... ironing at the time, and her back was partly toward me. She turned about with a startled or wondering look in her face and said, "What do you mean ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... could make her bed, so that she could sleep on it, but Patty; no one could make jelly, or broth, or whey, that she could taste, but Patty; no one could roast, or boil, or bake, but Patty. Of course, all these things must be done by nobody else. The ironing of Mrs. Crumpe's caps, which had exquisitely nice plaited borders, at last fell to Patty's share; because once, when the laundry-maid was sick, she plaited one so charmingly, that her lady would never afterwards wear any but of her plaiting. Now Mrs. Crumpe changed her cap, or rather had her ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... it was the earth's great ironing day. And - above all - a day that converts a railway traveller into a martyr, and a first-class carriage into a moving representation of the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... where no other maid is kept,'" read Alexandra, "'a graduate will take entire charge of kitchen and dining room, go to market if required, do ordinary family washing and ironing, will clean bathroom daily, and will clean and sweep every other room in the house, and the halls, once thoroughly every week. She will be on hand to answer the door only one afternoon every ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... is done away with. She is there to do your work and she does whatever may be called for. If she is asked to take care of the baby for a few hours, she does it willingly, as part of her duties; or if she is called upon to do some ironing left in the basket, she assumes that it is part of her work, and doesn't say, "No, Madam, I wasn't hired to do that," at the same time putting on her hat and leaving as under ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... express wagon with her basket of clothes along the streets, Mandy finally reached her home where she did the washing and ironing. Her children were waiting for her to come to supper. Liza Ann, the oldest girl, had set the table, and Jim, the next oldest boy, was out on the steps watching for his mother, just as Arnold and Mirabell watched for ...
— The Story of Calico Clown • Laura Lee Hope
... a charitable light, Nan consented, and went cheerfully on with her work, wondering how she could have thought ironing an infliction, and been so ungrateful for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a moment, and then, as they did not turn back, and the Boy stood waiting, she took him into the drying-room and into the ironing-room, and then returned to the betubbed apartment first invaded. There was only one blot on the fairness of that model laundry—a heap of torn and dirty canvas in ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... continued Wallace, "who came down early one winter morning, and after warming himself a moment by the sitting-room fire, he went out in the kitchen. It happened to be ironing day, and the girl was engaged in ironing at a great table by the kitchen fire. We will call the girl's ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... been living at is Paris," said Humphrey, "and they tell me 'tis where the king's head was cut off years ago. My poor mother used to tell me about that business. 'Hummy,' she used to say, 'I was a young maid then, and as I was at home ironing mother's caps one afternoon the parson came in and said, "They've cut the king's head off, Jane; and what 'twill ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... in a stage-coach led to the discovery of its advantages, and taking care, at the same time, of our abdominal muscles, lest the exertion of laughter should occasion one of the muscular spasms so much dreaded by our author. The plan is divided into four compartments; tickling, pickling, ironing, and throwing up the bowels. The tickling is performed by gentle taps and slight pushes in the pit of the stomach. (Who could bear it? It would throw nine patients out of ten into convulsions!) The pickling, by wrapping up the patient ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... nowhere to be seen when the interviewer mounted the steps of his cabin. Daisy, his wife, was ironing on the back porch and when she learned the object of the proposed interview, she readily agreed to induce Tom to talk. She approached a basement door and called: "Tom, here's one of dem giver'ment ladies what's come to hear you talk 'bout slavery days." Tom replied: "All right, Miss Daisy, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... Edouard Frere, in his scenes from humble life, which the skilful lithographer places within the means of all, represents the incidents of domestic existence among the poor. "The Prayer at the Mother's Knee," "The Woman at her Ironing Table," "The Child shelling Peas," "The Walk to School amid Rain and Sleet," are all charming idyls of every-day life. With yet greater skill and deeper pathos does the peasant Millet tell the story of his neighbors. The washerwomen, as the sun sets upon their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various |
