"Scrubbing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strangely enough bent his steps in a direction not far removed from Saint Elizabeth's Hospital. Surely he was not going to restore me to Tom Drift! No; we passed the end of Grime Street. There were milkmen's carts rattling up and down; servants were scrubbing doorsteps; and a few sleepy-looking men, with their breakfasts in their hands, were scurrying off to work. It was all the same as usual; yet how interesting, all of a sudden, the dull street had become to me. It ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... I thought to myself that they were probably no more germ-free after the bath than before. Unboiled water from shallow wells is not necessarily free from germs. I said nothing, however. After the daughter had finished scrubbing the cucumbers, the mother got a knife and carefully peeled two big ones. Then she handed them to us. Her own she did not ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... of water being freely sluiced along the deck overhead, and of the vigorous use of holystones and scrubbing-brushes immediately following thereupon, awoke me on the following morning, and I opened my eyes to find the rays of the newly risen sun flashing off the heaving surface of the ocean through the open scuttle of the state-room which I occupied. Although ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... or twice across to her mother for various articles we needed,—black lead, a scrubbing-brush, some house flannel and soft soap,—and when she had finished the grate I set her to scrub the floor, as it was black with dirt. I was afraid of the damp boards for my patient, but I covered her up as carefully ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of breaking up was going on. Wealthy, whose ideas were of the systematic old-fashioned kind, began at the very top of the house and came slowly down, clearing the rooms out in regular order, scrubbing, sweeping, and leaving bare, chill cleanness behind her. Part of the furniture was packed to go to the Island, but by far the greater part was brought down to the lower floor, and stacked in the best parlor, ready for an auction, which was to take place on the ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... on any other at the mountain Hazel was like a small derelict boat beached on a peaceful shore. There was a hypnotic quiet about the place, with no sound of Martha's scrubbing, no smell of cooking. There was always cold meat on Lord's Day, with pickled cabbage, that concomitant of mysterious Sabbath blessedness. A subdued excitement prevailed about service-time, and sank again afterwards like ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... so celebrated in the campaign times as the spot where uncle and his visitors would stop to "take a drink," when returning from a walk. Exquisite in her neatness, Aunt Mary would frequently order the basin of her favorite spring to be well purified by a thorough scrubbing with brush and soap, followed by a prolonged rinsing with water. During her illness last fall, she frequently asked to have a pitcher of water brought from this spring, which ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... through the motions of scrubbing his face clean, it occurred to him that he had not even bothered to speak to one of the seven or eight Crew girls he ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... so fond of children, might take her in hand, and give her for nurse old Dominick, who was as gentle as a woman. Once at Germanna perhaps some scolding Hausfrau would take her, for the sake of the scrubbing and lifting to be gotten out of those small hands and that slender frame. If not, she must on to Williamsburgh and the keeping of the vestry there. The next Orphan Court would bind her to some master or mistress who ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... boys—it doesn't seem to be their fault, either; and they are so ashamed and so utterly miserable when I am obliged to know about the horror of their condition. . . . Dear, it will be angelic of you to give me a good, hot scrubbing. I could go to ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... case Doctor Thiel is not of your opinion. He was as disagreeable as a scrubbing-brush to-day. He gave me a serious moral lecture with firstly, secondly, thirdly, and closed with an admonition that I must play the dare-devil no longer, or to be more explicit, must renounce love. That seemed to me ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... does not forgive his unfaithful wife in the closing scene. With several other dramatic schemes, it has hovered dimly before my imagination for some time past. The other night, however, as I was brushing my hair before going to bed, my brain, I suppose, receiving some stimulus from the scrubbing of my skull, the whole idea suddenly came towards me with increasing distinctness, till it gradually stood up as it were from head to foot before me—a very mournful figure, whose form and features were all ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... his whiskers up into a curve on his cheeks, the curves almost corresponding with the curve of his spectacles above; then he gave his bristly, porcupine-shaped head a backward rub with a sort of thing like a scrubbing-brush. 'If I'd only had the silver specs,' thought ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... dews and the poor homeless vagabonds still had possession of the grass of Hyde Park, as the pair walked up to Sir Brian Newcome's house, where the shutters were just opening to let in the day. The housemaid, who was scrubbing the steps of the house, and washing its trim feet in a manner which became such a polite mansion's morning toilet, knew Master Clive, and smiled at him from under her blousy curl-papers, admitting the two gentlemen into Sir Brian's dining-room, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... or porter, in one of the big Miami hotels," he pursued, "or a billet with one of the dredging gangs in the harbor. But somehow I'd rather do farm work of some sort. It seems less of a slump, when a chap is down on his luck, than to go in for scrubbing or for section-gang hustling. There are farms and citrus groves, all along here, just back of the bay. And I'm looking for one of them where I can get a decent day's work to do and a decent day's wages ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... their ears, in which 1 regularly saw -large and generally drop gold ear-rings, were quite as diverting ...to myself as to Alex and Adrienne. Many of them, also, had gold necklaces chains, and crosses; but ear-rings all: even maids who were scrubbing or sweeping, ragged wretches bearing burdens on their heads or shoulders, old women selling fruit or other eatables, gipsy-looking creatures with children tied to their backs—all wore these ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... the curious measures Pollyooly took to dust out the bedroom. She put on an apron, fastened up her hair and covered it with a large cotton handkerchief, rolled up her sleeves, and carried a broom, two pails of hot water from the kitchen, a scrubbing-brush, and a very large piece of soap into the room she proposed to dust. She shut herself in, took the counterpane off the bed, shook it with furious vigour, and even more vigourously still banged it against the end of the bedstead. ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... Lights full up. At rise of curtain, the bell rings in a discordant way. Christiana Haggerston discovered L., scrubbing a small wooden pail. Christiana is a handsome dark woman with the tinge of the ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... seriously. There was much laughter over the performance. They turned it into a "Signing of the Declaration," patterned after the old steel engraving. One of them, as the scroll lay open on the rail under her pen hand, unwittingly set foot in a scrubbing bucket kept there with a line attached for bailing water from the river, and was so unnerved by the fun of it that all at once the scroll flirted back into scroll form and fell through the whirling air that eddied ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... little house had almost driven her back from its threshold. She filled the small shabby hall, she fell over the brushes left by the general servant who had been scrubbing the oilcloth, not expecting her ladyship; she sat uncomfortably on the green rep chairs of the drawing-room staring at a Berlin-wool banner-screen which represented a poodle with beads for his eyes, at the silver shavings in the grate, ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... it chanced, her feelings claimed a more violent easement—and got it. She was scrubbing the kitchen floor. Just in the doorway stood the scrubbing-pail, full of dirty suds. On a chair close by stood a dish of eggs. The moose calf was nowhere in sight, and the bar was down. Tired and hot, she got up from her aching knees and went ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... that there was romance in the wooing of the old days read the story of Agnes Surrage, the humble kitchen maid, who, while scrubbing the tavern floor, attracted the attention of handsome Harry Frankland, custom officer of Boston, scion of a noble English family. With a suspiciously sudden interest in her, he obtained permission from her parents to have her educated, and for a number ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... soap, and brush, shown the front steps and walk leading to the gate, and set to work. Gin Gwee disappeared. When we went to hunt him up, we found him half way down the block, still scrubbing away. I was in favour of letting him alone to see how far he would go, but mother had other ideas ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... The windows of her house still overlooked her, and her greatest terror was that some voice, some appearance, out of that house, might command her return. The street was nearly empty. A maid scrubbing down steps looked after her sharply, and she wondered if she had been recognized. She had no intention of keeping to this street, or even taking a car and traveling down its broad, gray and gleaming vista of formal houses and ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... more or less, if you agree to call it so. As the houses are almost all built in flats, many of the windows open into patios, or court-yards, large or small, as the case may be. You may reckon on always having two or three servants, male or female, at work in the patio, the women washing or scrubbing, the men probably cleaning their horses, carriages, or harness; but whatever else they may be doing, you may be quite certain they will all be singing, though it is equally certain that, by the greatest exercise of amiability, you could scarcely ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... had engaged lodgings was Hotel d'Orient, in the Rue Daunou. The situation was convenient, very near the Place Vendome and the Rue de la Paix. But the house was undergoing renovations which made it as unpresentable as a moulting fowl. Scrubbing, painting of blinds, and other perturbing processes did all they could to make it uncomfortable. The courtyard was always sloppy, and the whole condition of things reminded me forcibly of the state of Mr. Briggs's household while the mason was carrying out the ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... his own. It was a humble little garret, but dainty with whiteness. One who did not thoroughly know her, might have said it was like her life, colourless, but bright with innocence and peace. The walls were white; the boards of the uncarpeted floor were as white as scrubbing could make old deal; the curtains of windows and bed were whiteness itself; the coverlet was white; so was the face that looked smiling over the top of it from the one low white pillow. But although Wingfold knew that face so well, he almost started at the sight of it now: in the patience ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... last, and the drudging toil of the day was ended. Lena climbed to her room in the third half-story of the Quarrymen's Hotel. Since daylight she had slaved, doing the work of a full-grown woman, scrubbing the floors, washing the heavy ironstone plates and cups, making the beds, and supplying the insatiate demands for wood and water in ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... with the old love before they were on with the new, i.e. to spend all they brought with them before they set about acquiring a new fortune. Then went and helped Mr. and Mrs. R. to arrange their new house, i.e. R. and I scrubbed the floors of the two rooms they have taken with soap, scrubbing-brushes, flannel, and water, made them respectably clean, and removed his boxes into their ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... Having taken scientific steps to discover whether that particular garb entailed celibate vows, and learning that it did not, he had industriously run its wearer to sainted earth—had, that is to say, pursued her to a top-floor tenement and there found her upon her knees with sanitary zeal scrubbing dirt from the boards of poverty; and poverty upon its bed whimpering with rage and feebly cursing her for thus coming to disturb its peace. Thus they had met, and very promptly and practically had the wearer of the habit made ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... bought him a little red pail, and I gave it to him that night when he was partly undressed, and he was so enchanted with it that he scampered around hugging it, and saying, "Pile! pile!" like a little Cockney. He gave such squeals of ecstasy that everybody came into the nursery to find him scrubbing his crib with a nail-brush and little ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... very properly be painted, as also the floors, to permit scrubbing, especially after the illness of an occupant. If papered, a chintz pattern is preferable; cretonne of similar design should then be used for furniture slips, etc. The woodwork may be white, with the chairs to match. There should be washable cotton rag-rugs, ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... shoulder, lifted him quickly into the great white bath-tub and turned on the warm water. There was no use wasting time, and getting blood on white tiles that she would have to scrub. She was not unkind but she hated dirt, and partly supporting the child with one arm she applied herself to scrubbing him as vigorously as possible with the other hand. The shock of the water, not being very warm at first, brought returning consciousness to the boy for a moment, in one long shuddering sigh. The eyelashes trembled for an instant on the white cheeks, and his eyes opened; gazed dazedly, ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... I can see him now, as he went limping up and down the vestibule, with his grey hair sticking up in scrubbing-brush fashion, his shrivelled yellow face, and his large dark eyes, that were as keen as any hawk's, and yet soft as a buck's. The whole room was hung with trophies of his numerous hunting expeditions, and he had some story about every one of them, if only he could be got ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... short while after Jim had finished the scrubbing operation, and I went to the table with an appetite I had not felt for a week. My whole system seemed rejuvenated, and I am not sure that I should, at that moment, have declined a ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... truant officer and the terrible penalty of the compulsory education law. Time and time again had poor Eliza Barnes been brought up on account of the shortcomings of that son of hers. She was a hard-working, honest woman, and day by day bent over her tub, scrubbing away to keep Patsy in shoes and jackets, that would wear out so much faster than they could be bought. But she never murmured, for she loved the boy with a deep affection, though his misdeeds were a sore ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... would; but you might clean my back, please," and he began rubbing himself feverishly with his cap, after the fashion of a scrubbing brush. ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... that all we got for nine years' work and half a billion dollars?" They will have forgotten the scrubbing of Panama and Colon, forgotten the vast hospitals with great surgeons and graduate nurses, the building of hundreds of houses and the furnishing of them down to the last center table, they will not recall the rebuilding of the entire P. R. R., nor ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... found upon her knees before the kitchen range, polishing the nickel name-plate on the oven door. A dish-pan of hot water and a scrubbing brush stood upon the floor beside her. As Mrs. Brewster came in, Sary glanced ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... layers. Mr. C. H. Cartlidge is authority for the statement that this leaching at joints can be largely done away with by the simple process of washing the top surface of concrete which has been allowed to set over night by scrubbing it with wire brushes in conjunction with thorough flushing with a hose. But efflorescence frequently appears on the faces of walls built without construction joints and in which a wet concrete is puddled in and not tamped in ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... meant household duties. She said one could scrub the table and obtain the best exercise for arms and chest, and at the same time produce an article or piece of furniture which would be a delight to the eye in its whiteness and brightness. She said that in scrubbing the floor one obtained very much the same movement that would be given in the gymnasium, while at the same time the exercise would conduce not only to the personal advantage but to the happiness of the family. She spoke of sweeping, and dusting, and bed-making, and expressed ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... he was busy at the sink scrubbing the dishes, when he was surprised by feeling two very competent arms surround him, and a pink gingham apron was thrown over his head. "Mifflin," said his wife, "how many times have I told you to put on an apron ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... preparations for that function occupied a space of over two hours, and necessitated an attention to his toilet of a kind not commonly seen. That is to say, after a brief post-grandial nap he called for soap and water, and spent a considerable period in the task of scrubbing his cheeks (which, for the purpose, he supported from within with his tongue) and then of drying his full, round face, from the ears downwards, with a towel which he took from the waiter's shoulder. Twice he snorted into the waiter's countenance as he did this, and then he posted himself ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... sudden, helpless population. You visit the big kitchen with its ever-simmering kettles; the dining-halls with their long tables and benches; the schoolhouses full of lively, irrepressible children; the wash-house where always talkative and jocose laundresses are scrubbing and wringing the clothes; the sewing-rooms where hundreds of women and girls are busy with garments and gossip; the chapel where religious services are held by the devoted pastors; the recreation-room ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... you worn't one of us, last night?' inquired Sam, scrubbing his face with the towel. 'You seem one of the jolly sort—looks as conwivial as a live trout in a lime basket,' added Mr. Weller, in ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... white petticoats. In the streets of Scheveling, I saw the tallest woman I think I ever met with, a very giantess, considerably more than six feet high, straddling about the street of the little village, and scouring and scrubbing the pavement with great energy. Close at hand was the shore; a strong west wind was driving the surges of the North Sea against it. A hundred fishing vessels rocking in the surf, moored and lashed together with ropes, formed a line along ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... food is good and varied, the charges moderate; the place is spotlessly clean in every part—I could only wish that the hotels in some of our English country towns were up to the standard of the "Concordia" in this respect. "One cannot live without cleanliness," as the housemaid, assiduously scrubbing, remarked to me. It is also enlarged; the old dining-room, whose guests are so humorously described by him, is now my favourite bedroom, while those wretched oil-lamps sputtering on the wall have been replaced by a lavish use of electricity. One is hardly ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... "home"—a dilapidated-looking cottage in a potato patch, enclosed by a broken-down fence, patched up by Nelly and her new mother with old barrel-staves and branches of trees. The outdoor work which fell to her lot Nelly did not so much dislike. It was the nursing of a screaming baby, or scrubbing dingy, broken boards—work often imposed upon her—which sorely tried ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... paleness to the influence of some strange sickness; while a third, being of a sceptical and suspicious turn of mind, suddenly seized Barton by the wrist and spitting upon the skirt of her pareu, commenced scrubbing his hand with great vigour, to see whether the colours were fast. Our tight-fitting garments; too, seemed to puzzle them exceedingly, and we were listeners to an animated debate, upon the question whether they were ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... and the level of the water in the tank is raised above the mouths of the pipes E. The generating chambers D are provided with movable cages F in which the carbide is arranged on trays. The gas evolved travels through a scrubbing-box G containing charcoal, and the pipe J with drainage-pipe P to the water-seal or washer K inside the holder, into which it then passes. The outlet-pipe for gas from the holder leads through the condensing ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... watched with other eyes; listened with otherwise expectant ears. Under the high hanging shelves supporting great sides of bacon overhead, her body was busy by the great fireplace, attentive to the pot swinging on iron gallows, scrubbing the long table where the field hands would sit down directly to their evening meal. Her mind remained by the cradle, night and day on the watch, to hope and suffer. That child, like the other two, never smiled, never stretched its hands to her, never spoke; never had a glance of recognition for ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... with the watch on deck's "turning-to" at day-break and washing down, scrubbing, and swabbing the decks. This, together with filling the "scuttled butt" with fresh water, and coiling up the rigging, usually occupies the time until seven bells, (half after seven,) when all hands get breakfast. At eight, the day's work begins, and lasts until sun-down, with the exception ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall. Once, twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was renewed. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... under reefed upper topsails, walking into the seas on a taut bowline, with water coming aboard freely. There was little for the watch to do save those trivial jobs which never fail on a ship. Conroy and some of the others were set to scrubbing teak on the poop, and he had a view of the sail-maker at his work on the gratings under the break of the poop, stitching on his knees to make the mate presentable for his last passage. The sailmaker was a bearded Finn, with a heavy, ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... and ill fitting, and all wore slovenly rolls, tied to imitate scratch-wigs, the effect of which was amazing. The passion for cleanliness in the Dutch lies not in their men folk; a Dutch mistress of this manor house had died o' shame long since—or died o' scrubbing. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... disastrous, but aided by his wife and an elderly man who had remained in their employ, he would patiently recommence scrubbing, sweeping and cleaning, carefully reinstating each object or fragment thereof, in or as near as possible to its ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... be recognised, that the occupant is not always a permanent one; that it may at times be a fresh importation directly from a city tenement; therefore, everything in the room should be able to sustain very radical treatment in the way of scrubbing and cleaning. Wall papers, unwashable rugs and curtains are out of the question; yet even with these limitations it is possible to make a charming and reasonably inexpensive room, which would be attractive to cultivated as well ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... at least each evening this happens at more than one City bank, where one of the duties of the resident messenger is to clean the outer steps. Dexter had taken advantage of the man's absence below in quest of scrubbing material to enter the ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... prevailed within the cottage. They think it is one of the supernatural visitants of whom the old lady talks so much, thought the boy, approaching a window, where the light within showed him all the inhabitants at their several occupations; the old woman was hastily scrubbing the stone floor, and strewing it thickly over with sand, while her two sons seemed with equal haste to be thrusting something large and heavy into an immense chest, which they carefully locked. The boy in a frolicsome mood, thoughtlessly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... is no paradox in saying that, practically, it is very difficult for a healthy person to be genuinely unclean; and that ideally, in the surgeon's eyes, we are, all, rich man and tramp, so unclean that there is little to choose between us, and every one of us requires a comprehensive scrubbing in ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... rested from William. But there was something in the manner of Jane's scrubbing the front doorstep or sweeping out the rooms, a certain viciousness, that persuaded me that the story ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... soul here who cares! I shall have to go away and find Dad!" she exploded in a kind of desperation, standing up and scrubbing her eyes with ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... soap, and monkey soap, and all sorts of soap; and soda and scrubbing brushes; and persian powder; and carbolic to remove the smell. I must have a disinfecting. Perhaps I may ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... had gone it caused Rosenblatt no small annoyance that while he was thus struggling to keep pace with the demands upon his time and energy, Paulina, with lamentable lack of consideration, should find it necessary to pause in her scrubbing, washing, and baking, long enough to give birth to a fine healthy boy. Paulina's need brought her help and a friend in the person of Mrs. Fitzpatrick, who lived a few doors away in the only house that had been able to resist ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... at first, for almost all were new to their tasks; the barbers were carrying stretchers when they ought to have been barbering; the clippers were scrubbing instead of doing their proper work; but, nevertheless, it was marvellously rapid. The motor tore back to the station, and by the time it had returned its first load had been washed, shaved, arrayed in clean pyjamas, and either lay in bed in the ward, or were waiting their turn ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... street. With not a tree, of course, or a blade of grass between the paving-stones, the narrow lane was as hot as Tophet, and reeked with a genuine Scotch odor, being infested with unwashed children, and altogether in a state of chronic filth; although some women seemed to be hopelessly scrubbing the thresholds of their wretched dwellings. I never saw an outskirt of a town less fit for a poet's residence, or in which it would be more miserable for any man of cleanly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... busy as a bee all the time, scrubbing the floors, cleaning the paint, and polishing the brass-work. When the boat was ready to return to Port Rock, she was in condition to receive her furniture. She was launched early in the morning, and Ethan proceeded at once to get up steam. Both of the ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... of, and the washing was wrung by hand. The stalwart farmer "calculated to hire" in haying, harvesting, planting, plowing, threshing and killing times. Whatever might have been the wife's calculations, she toiled unaided, cooking, washing, ironing, scrubbing, sewing, churning, butter-making and "bringing up a family," single-handed, with never a creature to lift an ounce or do a stroke for her while she could stand upon ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... they had a way of growing restive once a week, besieged the good Burgomaster's house, and demanded—with a thousand shrill and voluble tongues—immediate surrender on terms. Between whiles, being busy with scrubbing and baking, and washing their children, they were quiet enough. But as surely as Sunday came round, and with it a clean house and leisure to chat with the neighbours, the Burgomaster's hour came too, and with it the mob ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... sermon, can give a clear conscience to a criminal in Newgate. The cause of the evil, in both cases, lies too deep for tears. Millions of men and women pass through nature to eternity clean-skinned and pious—with slight expense either in soap or sermons; while millions more, with much week-day bodily scrubbing, and much Sabbath spiritual sanctification, are held in bad odour here, while they live, by those who happen to sit near them, and finally go out like the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the office, copying letters, running errands, carrying books to and from the court rooms, reading law in the intervals, and at night scrubbing the floors. I was pale, thin, big-headed, with the body of an underfed child, and an ambition that kept me up half the night with Von Holst's "Constitutional Law," Walker's "American Law," or a sheepskin volume of Lawson's ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... studio, of brooms and scrubbing brushes, but she was already wise enough in wife-lore not to mention them. Mary came of a race whose women had always served their men. It did not seem strange to her, as it might have to an American, that the whole labor of their ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... surprised to know, Mr. Smart," he said, consulting his sheets, "that scrub-women are getting more here than they do in New York City, and I am convinced that there are more scrub-women. Today we had thirty new ones scrubbing the loggia on the gun-room floor, and they all seem to have apprentices working under them. The carpenters and plasterers were not so numerous to-day. I paid them off last night, you see. It may interest you to hear that their wages ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... he felt strangely strong and refreshed. He had worked hard all the afternoon cleaning his little hut and now the humble room looked as spotless as spring water and vigorous scrubbing could make it. Even the table and chairs were scoured and the fireplace cleaned, while, to complete the day's task Mordecai had emptied an old barrel in the corner, burning the heap of odds and ends which had accumulated since his return. But now as he stood behind ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... the illustration of soap and hot water; one can imagine he is actually watching the scrubbing process, seeing the proletarian Founder emerging all new and respectable under the brush of this capitalist professor. The professor has a rule all his own for reading the scriptures; he tells us that when there are two conflicting ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... world shown him at lunch-time, a world capable of existing—there was no doubt about that—but so unnecessary, such a thing to believe in— Shaw and Wells and the serious sixpenny weeklies! What were they after, scrubbing and demolishing, these elderly people? Had they never read Homer, Shakespeare, the Elizabethans? He saw it clearly outlined against the feelings he drew from youth and natural inclination. The poor devils had rigged up this meagre object. ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... thing," she mused. "I must be a sort of chameleon, the way I change with my surroundings. It doesn't seem possible that only last week I was scrambling around with my head tied up in a towel, scrubbing and cleaning and dragging furniture around at a break-neck speed. I could almost believe I've never done anything all my life but trail around this garden at my elegant ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... idleness upon the sailors, were tireless in devising means of employment. The rigging was set up weekly, so that the shrouds and stays were like lines drawn with a ruler. Enough rope-yarn was pulled, and spun-yarn spun, to supply a navy-yard for months. Laggards were set to scrubbing the rust off the chain cables, and sharpening with files the flukes of the anchors. When such work failed, the men were drilled in the use of cutlasses and single sticks; forming long lines down the gun-deck, and slashing ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... duck, and, except for spar-deck guns where they are exposed to the weather, should not be painted, but they, as well as the staves, should be kept clean by scrubbing. A becket should be attached to the end to haul them ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... men-they were all huddled together-set up such a screaming. 'Munday!' says I, 'you don't go to the Tombs-here! I've got good news for you.' This quieted her some, and then I picked her up-she was nearly naked-and seeing she wanted scrubbing up, carried her out of the Hole, and made her follow me to my house, where we got her into some clothes, and seeing that she was got right in her mind, I thought it would be a good ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... the same air for every day of the week and Miss Jones is baking, ironing, or scrubbing. She is then sick or ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... bleached it. This, he soaked thoroughly, in lieu of brushing, before using a crippled piece of comb. The dividing line between washed and unwashed was one inch above his neckband and two above his wrists. Even when fresh from a scrubbing, his hands were not entirely clean. They had been so long in contact with the earth that it had become absorbed into the very pores of his skin; but they were powerful hands, interesting, with long palms and spatulate fingers. The black strips at the end of each ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... a little girl about eight years old, staying in Beaufort at de Missus' house, polishing her brass andirons, and scrubbing her floors, when one morning she say to me, 'Janie, take this note down to Mr. Wilcox Wholesale Store on Bay Street, and fetch me back de package de clerk ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... excessively hot and oppressive. The horses and mules were rolling on the prairie to refresh themselves, or feeding among the bushes in the hollow. We had dined; and Delorier, puffing at his pipe, knelt on the grass, scrubbing our service of tin plate. Shaw lay in the shade, under the cart, to rest for a while, before the word should be given to "catch up." Henry Chatillon, before lying down, was looking about for signs of snakes, the only living things that he feared, and uttering various ejaculations of disgust, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... what you're fashioned for—not bracken-beds In fellside ditches underneath the stars; And sharing potluck by the roadside fire. Well, every man must follow his own bent, Even though some woman's wried to let him do it: So, I must bide within this whitewashed gaol, For ever scrubbing flagstones, and washing dishes, And darning hose, and making meals for men, Half-suffocated by the stink of sheep, Till you find a lass to your mind; and set me free To take the road again—if I'm not too doddery For gallivanting; as most folk are by the ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... begun: "P'rhaps, Master Razor rogue, to you 'tis fun, That people flay themselves out of their lives: You rascal! for an hour have I been grubbing, Giving my crying whiskers here a scrubbing, With razors just like oyster knives. Sirrah! I tell you, you're a knave, To cry up razors that can't shave." "Friend," quoth the razor-man, "I'm not a knave. As for the razors you have bought, Upon my soul I never thought That they would shave." "Not think they'd ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... stairs suddenly rolled the drum, making a fearful racket on the steps as it bounded from side to side. Down the stairs it rolled, across the narrow strip of hall, past Harriet, now on her knees scrubbing the green and white tiles, under the ladder of the awning man, down the steps, and right out into the street! After it scrambled Sunny Boy, as fast as his tan sandals would take him. He was just in time to see his drum roll to the middle of the street and stop in the center ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... installed in his new place, and set to work immediately scrubbing up extras of all sorts to make the reception of the honourable candidate for the county as brilliant as possible, not only for the honour of the house, but to make a favourable impression on the coming guest; for Augusta, the eldest girl, was marriageable, and ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... merely saw her aunts grow more and more saving, pinching here and there, cutting off this and that relentlessly. Less meat and fish were bought; the woman who had lately been coming two days a week for washing, ironing, and scrubbing was dismissed; the old bonnets of the season before were brushed up and retrimmed; there were no drives to Moderation or trips to Portland. Economy was carried to its very extreme; but though Miranda was well-nigh as gloomy and uncompromising in her manner ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... boys said: "Aw, piffle, cut it out. We might as well be scrubbing the floor as listening to this talk. Come on, fellows." He led them back, one of them protesting that he would never scrub a floor for any man. He went ahead and scrubbed the floor still saying that he wouldn't. That lad was weaker than the leader. He went wherever he was led. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... pistol, he sings a beautiful farewell, the Chorus turns away weeping—the sailors have just cleaned up and they cannot bear the sight of the deck all spoiled with a British sailor's brains so soon after scrubbing! Ralph lifts the pistol, takes aim—and ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... neighbors recognized the Carder car and came out to question the boy, who by the time he entered the grocery found himself confronting an audience who all asked questions at once. Pete's shock of hair stood up as usual like a scrubbing-brush; he wore no hat, and his dull eyes looked about from one to another eager face. Ben had strolled back of a tall pile ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... fell out on the floor in a heap, were—some bearskins and a splendid buffalo-hide, neatly packed; a pipe, two red flannel shirts, a tobacco-pouch, and an Indian blanket; a leather bag, a gunpowder flask, two squares of yellow soap, a bullet mold, and a nightcap; a tomahawk, a paper of nails, a scrubbing-brush, a hammer, and an old gridiron. Having emptied the sack, Mat took up the buffalo hide, and spread it out on his bed, with a very expressive sneer at the patchwork counterpane and meager curtains. He next threw ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... Frenchman, apparently, stood behind the board counter, and bowed at their approach. He wore a little black spike or goatee, and his face fairly shone above a collarless shirt. From a room behind sounded vigorous scrubbing and rinsing. ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... top-deck were newly washed and scrupulously clean. Fifty yards up-deck, where perspective and the sheer of the ship gave the promenade the appearance of a long, up-curved tunnel, the boys caught sight of a gang of men scrubbing down deck. A little beyond the scrubbing gang, some garments fluttered on a line drying ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... to it; she always puts her heart into what she has to do. Well, you look sorely disappointed, child: I am sorry for it, but I cannot help it. I have no fancy for such vanities, but I dare say you like better sticking bits of gold leaf upon vellum than scrubbing and sweeping." ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... with the watch on deck turning-to at daybreak, and washing-down, scrubbing, and swabbing the decks. This, with filling the "scuttle butt" with fresh water, and coiling up the rigging, usually occupies the time until seven bells (half after seven), when all hands get breakfast. At eight the day's work begins, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... rancher. She wants to live by her brain as well as he does. What's the use of a woman being fine if that's all her fineness comes to? You can say she hands it on to her children. But she don't. It's something she acquires and it's lost—in the scrubbing pail." ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... down his neck, and she pinched his nose when she wiped him, and brushed his hair so hard that really it was dreadful; and even a bigger boy would have found it hard to bear. He shivered and sighed: but Jane came in; and, when he saw that the shadow stood still and took the scrubbing like a little hero, he tried to do the same, and succeeded so well that Jane actually patted his head and called him "a deary;" which was something new, for old Nurse Jane was always very ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... I'm a strong man, and willing to do any kind of work. I've worked hard for sixteen year: I've been sober and steady and saving. Look what all that work and saving has brought me! This is a nice place for a decent man and his family to live in, ain't it? Them walls ain't clean? No, because scrubbing can't make 'em. The grime's in the plaster: yes, and worse than grime—vermin and disease sech as 'tain't right for me to mention even to ladies like you, but it's right enough for sech as us to live in. Yes, by G—-! to die in!" He was a man who spoke habitually in a low ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... objects become docile to their will. Such a one was Mary Magdalen. In two days she had transformed a sooty cavern into a clean and orderly kitchen. For she was a singing and a scourful woman, and her Sign was the speretual and the scrubbing-brush. It is true that she put a precious old Spode tea-pot on the stove and boiled the tea in it; that she hung her wig and the dish-towel on the same nail; and that she immediately asked for a white stocking foot to use ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... presents a record of the work accomplished. These various committees at times are burdened with the most onerous labours, for upon them falls the duty of verifying all the petty details of management. Every pound of soap, or candles, scrubbing-brushes, and similar domestic items, pass under their inspection, not only the payments for them, but the actual articles, or samples of them, being examined. Tenders for grocery, bread, wines and spirits ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... of the bartender inside. The man, on his knees, scrubbing the floor, rose stiffly and ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... kitchen and fetched forth a Tin Bowl full of hot suds, and with these she washed me as she had been directed. I bore it all unresistingly—likewise a scrubbing with a rough towel. Then, when my hair was kempt with an old Felting comb, almost toothless, I felt refreshed and hungrier than ever. But Mother Drum never ceased to complain of ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... were living in one half of it. We scrubbed it out and moved in. Mother sewed some loops on some quilts and made two bedrooms. We told her she was a fine carpenter. We did have lots of fun in our family. The floor was rough boards, but we planed them off by scrubbing with white sand. When the floor was dry, we always sprinkled it with white sand. The slabs were put on lengthwise, and there were always rows of bright Indians' eyes like beads on a string watching us through these cracks. My brother had smallpox in this house. We never ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... kettle suspended from a hook half-way up the low chimney. Outside, the dog-kennels had been newly thatched with tohi grass, the garden weeded and freshly dug, the chopping-block and camp-oven as clean as scrubbing could make them. It was too late in the year for fruit, but Salter's currant, raspberry, and gooseberry bushes gave us a good idea of how well he must have fared in the summer. The fowls were just devouring the last of the green-pea ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... I hear Buckwheat blubbering and demanding how he can take a bath in his wounded condition. I wait and listen for Margaret's judgment. Nor am I disappointed. Tom Spink and Henry are told off to the task, and the thorough scrubbing of Buckwheat is assured. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... the Aveyron sleep. This is not a part of France where the study of cleanliness and comfort is carried to excess. If the floor of the room that I now entered had ever been washed, the boards must have forgotten the scrubbing sensation a century or more ago. The appearance of everything indicated that I was in a fleas' paradise; but as it was by no means the first of the kind of which I had had experience, I merely took the precaution ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... months Mrs. Tufton shone splendid as the wife of the British warrior. The Wellingsford Hospital rang with her praises and glistened with her scrubbing brush. She was the Admirable Crichton of the institution. What with men going off to the war and women going off to make munitions, there were never-ending temporary gaps in the staff. And there was never a gap that Mrs. ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... that extended panoramically from her seat in the pavilion. As her eyes fell on the old cottage opposite she was surprised to see a dishpan sail through the open window, to fall with a clatter of broken dishes on the hard ground of the yard. A couple of dish-towels followed, and then a broom and a scrubbing-brush—all tossed out in an angry, energetic way that scattered them in every direction. Then on the porch appeared the form of a small girl, poorly dressed in a shabby gingham gown, who danced up and down for a moment as if mad with rage and then, observing the washtub, ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... cheerfully hocked it. She'd always wondered why she had it and I don't believe she ever remembered to go back for it. And Janet had a nephew, a cross-eyed nephew, who was an odd-job man. Can't you see Dulcie buying the bags of creamy kalsomine and the brushes and Janet packing up her pails and scrubbing things? ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... bottom, the house was scrupulously clean. Not a particle of dust dimmed the brightness of the furniture, and even now, when the city was threatened with siege, the merchant's wife never relaxed her vigilance over the doings of her maids, who seemed to the boys to be perpetually engaged in scrubbing, dusting, and polishing. ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... heartily, showing really remarkable skill in conveying pieces of sausage to her mouth by means of the knife alone. Finding it necessary to breathe at last, she looked round at Jane. The hand-maiden was on her knees near the fire, scrubbing very hard at the pan with successive pieces of newspaper. It was a sight to increase the gusto of Clem's meal, but of a sudden there came into the girl's mind a yet more delightful thought. I have mentioned that in the back-kitchen lay the body of a dead ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... leaves of the record and look back a little. It was a mighty dirty record, McVickar. I don't know that I'm any better man now than I was in the days when we made that record—you and I—but when I looked it over, it struck me all in a heap that I'd have to get out the bucket and scrubbing-brush if I didn't want to make a clean-hearted, clean-minded boy plumb ashamed of ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... washboards, therefore will last twice as long. For housecleaning it is unequaled. One girl can wash more clothes, paint, walls, windows or floors in a day with perfect ease with this powder than she could in four days with hard labor, soap, and scrubbing brush, and the paint will look new and bright. It only requires to be tested to be appreciated. Packages of one pound will only ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... sitting hunched up on a doorstep in a back street in Belfast. Her skirt and the step are webbed with threads clipped from machine-embroidered linen, or pulled from handkerchiefs for hemstitching. A few doors away little Helen Keefe, all elbows, is scrubbing her ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... was what I call a tyrant. I lived with her several months, but she kept me almost half of my time in the woods, running from under the bloody lash. While I was at home she kept me all the time rubbing furniture, washing, scrubbing the floors; and when I was not doing this, she would often seat herself in a large rocking chair, with two pillows about her, and would make me rock her, and keep off the flies. She was too lazy to scratch her own head, and would often make me scratch and ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... the mother as she vigorously scrubbed the small boy's face with soap and water, "didn't I tell you never to blacken your face again? Here I've been scrubbing for half an hour and it ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... the trouble," Mabane remarked cheerfully, strolling over to my side. "Where are you looking? Chertsey Street, eh? Well, in all probability mamma is cooking the dinner, Mary is scrubbing the floor, Miss Flora is dusting the drawing-room, and Miss Louisa is practising her scales. You have got a maggot in your brain, Greatson. Life such as you are thinking of is the most commonplace thing in the world. The middle-classes ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... very gratifying to Uncle John. He thanked Beth very humbly for her kind attention, and laughed with Louise when she ridiculed his pudgy, round form and wondered if his bristly gray hair wouldn't make a good scrubbing brush. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... I made myself gardener of some tintless flowers that grew between its closely-ranked shrubs; I cleared away the relics of past autumns, choking up a rustic seat at the far end. Borrowing of Goton, the cuisiniere, a pail of water and a scrubbing- brush, I made this seat clean. Madame saw me at work and smiled approbation: whether sincerely or not I don't know; but she ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... battles of 1914. The Germans had lived there and everything was in an awful condition. One wonders how they endured themselves. The Military detailed two men for two days to spade up and carry away the filth from the bedrooms, and it took two women an entire week all but one day, scrubbing all day long until their shoulders ached, to scrub the place clean. But they got it clean. They were the kind of women that did not give up even when a thing seemed an impossibility. This was the sort of thing they were up against continually. They could have no meetings ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... permission. Then the master and the bigger boys and girls set to work to prepare the school for the great day. The boys were told off in sections, some to get dry cedar boughs from the swamp for the big fire outside, over which the iron sugar-kettle was swung to heat the scrubbing water; others off into the woods for balsam-trees for the evergreen decorations; others to draw water ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... upon to part with plain wainscot and clean hangings. There are some ladies that affect to smell a stink in everything; they are always highly perfumed, and continually burning frankincense in their rooms. She was above such affectation, yet she never would lay aside the use of brooms and scrubbing-brushes, and scrupled not to lay her linen ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... therefore, was to make the best of the few medicines and appliances that they had taken in their hands and pockets when they disembarked. The things that seemed to be most needed were cots, blankets, pillows, brooms, soap, scrubbing-brushes, and disinfectants. All of these things we had on board the State of Texas, and the officers of Miss Barton's staff spent a large part of the night in breaking out the cargo and getting ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... first, he rubbed a corner with some cotton dipped in one of his mixtures, which frothed the painting white. Then for an hour he scrubbed the surface progressively until he had a lot of little cotton balls all black. Afterwards, he began again, for the dirt was in layers, and, at the conclusion of the scrubbing and brushing, the chevalier emerged as life-like and fresh as when painted by the pupil of Raphael—Albert Durer or another—three hundred years before. The scratch was easily repaired, and Balzac was beside himself with joy. ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... building, partly constructed of wreck-wood, could scarce house the party. The food supplies, other than those the visitors brought with them, were chiefly 'rusty bacon, and worse cheese,' with very bad ale to drink. And on the first afternoon, the house was found to be so damp from recent scrubbing that Mrs Fielding, who "besides discharging excellently well her own, and all the tender offices becoming the female character; who besides being a faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender nurse, could likewise supply ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... be older than the plain it forms, as navvies must needs antecede the embankment painfully built up by the contents of their wheel-barrows. For thousands of years, heat and cold, rain, snow, and frost, the scrubbing of glaciers, and the scouring of torrents laden with sand and gravel, have been wearing down the rocks of the upper basins of the rivers, over an area of many thousand square miles; and these materials, ground ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... dry them, the thrifty dames, who were French and make soup out of everything, put in the time by laundering the children. It seemed like that economic stroke of good housewives who use the soapy wash-water for scrubbing the kitchen-floor. There they were, dozens of hopefuls on whom the fate of the nation rested—creepers to ten-year-olds—being scrubbed and dipped, or playing parlez-vous tag in lieu of towel, as innocent of clothes as Carlyle's imaginary House ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... the noise of a scrubbing-brush led up to the charwoman, Maryann Money, a person who for a face had a circular disc, furrowed less by age than by long gazes of perplexity at distant objects. To think of her was to get good-humoured; to speak of her was to raise the image ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... said her aunt. "We think the place where we work ought to be the prettiest room in the house. White paint requires more frequent scrubbing than colored paint; but the girls say they don't mind, since it keeps our spirits smiling. Would you like to help dry these pans? You will find towels on that line ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... look'd like Devils, tho' they sang like Saints! The thing was undeniable! They wanted washing! not that slight ablution To which the skin of the White Man is liable, Merely removing transient pollution— But good, hard, honest, energetic rubbing And scrubbing, Sousing each sooty frame from heels to head With stiff, strong, saponaceous lather, And pails of water—hottish rather, But not so boiling as ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... preparations for emigration. Carrying heavy lumbering wooden furniture to the woods of Upper Canada is as "coals to Newcastle." The black walnut makes handsomer furniture than mahogany, and does not so easily stain, a property which saves much scrubbing and not a little scolding in families. In clothes, boots and shoes are most useful, for Canadian leather resembles hide, and one pair of English shoes will easily last out three American. In Canada, a sovereign generally fetches 23s. or 24s. currency, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... however, had neglected tatting as well as other forms of fancy-work. At school, to be sure, she had spent a great deal of time in acquiring flower-painting, according to the ingenious method then fashionable, of applying the shapes of leaves and flowers cut out in cardboard, and scrubbing a brush over the surface thus conveniently marked out; but even the spill-cases and hand-screens which were her last half-year's performances in that way were not considered eminently successful, and had long been consigned to the retirement of the best bedroom. Thus there was a good deal of family ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Russias was a girl of seventeen, that she makes her first dramatic appearance on the stage on which she was to play so remarkable a part. Then we find her acting as maid-servant to the Lutheran pastor of Marienburg, scrubbing his floors, nursing his children, and waiting on his resident pupils, in the midst of all the perils of warfare. The Russian hosts had for weeks been laying siege to Marienburg; and the Commandant, unable to defend the ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... very glad to come, doctor, for time hangs heavily on my hands. John Wilkes spends hours every day in washing and scrubbing decks, as he calls it, and there are but few books ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... a scrubbing-brush with two good fingers and the stumps of two others even if both joints of the thumb are gone, but it takes considerable practice ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... angels. Utterly resourceless people find themselves reduced to reading the penny stamps on yesterday's letters. There is a good deal of food for thought on a penny stamp, but nothing really uplifting. Some people I know employ this morning leisure in scrubbing their consciences clean, thus thriftily making room for the sins of the coming day. But Sarah Brown's conscience was dreadfully receptive, almost magnetic; little sins like smuts lay always deep upon it. There were a few regrettable seconds in every minute she lived, ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... receptacle for bones, rags, etc.; but so forbidding was its aspect, and so noisome the stench arising from the putrefying bones and rotting rags, that it was feared for the health of those who might occupy it. However it was agreed to try the effect of scraping, scrubbing, white-washing and a liberal use of chloride of lime. This was attended with such good effects that, notwithstanding the place was still offensive to the olfactories, the managers concluded to open in it ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... over the table, imitated, with his napkin, a servant scrubbing; then, raising his ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... protracted pain, he even falls into a pleasant sleep. He is allowed to lie quietly on this lower slab for about fifteen minutes. An attendant then lathers him from head to foot with a perfumed cake of soap and gives him a gentle but thorough scrubbing with an oval brush like that in use among hostlers—finishing the operation by vigorously shampooing, Oriental fashion, each separate joint of his whole body, with a result of exquisite relief not exaggerated by Eastern travellers as applicable ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... area and the area-steps, and the street-door and the street-door steps, and the brass handle, and the door-plate, and the knocker, and the fan-light, were all as clean and bright, as indefatigable white-washing, and hearth-stoning, and scrubbing and rubbing, could make them. The wonder was, that the brass door-plate, with the interesting inscription 'MRS. TIBBS,' had never caught fire from constant friction, so perseveringly was it polished. There were meat-safe-looking ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... there'd be a little more cayenne in it," complained the big boss, scrubbing his knuckles against ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day |
