"Cleaning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have left the house unobserved. Let us take the first case. This affair happened nearly two years ago. Now, he couldn't have remained alive in the house for two years. He would have been noticed. The servants, for instance, when cleaning out the ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... well enough in Mr. Brande's laboratory at the Royal Institution, but would be quite out of place in the kitchen of either of the hotels in the same street. A footman might as well study the polarization of light whilst cleaning ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... had been training horses, and Old Colonial had been gentling bullocks; so we had a choice of draggers for the plough. We ploughed in those fifty acres, fenced them round, and put in potatoes for a cleaning crop, to thoroughly break up the old turf. We hope to get two crops in the year. The second will be maize and ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... Markham emerged from the rude tent the next morning, and came out into the bright light of day, the first thing she saw was her brother Ralph, who looked as if he had been sweeping a chimney or cleaning out an ash-hole. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... broke, I could see the enemy's tents on Valley River, at the point on the Huttonsville road just below me. It was a tempting sight. We waited for the attack on Cheat Mountain, which was to be the signal. Till 10 A. M. the men were cleaning their unserviceable arms. But the signal did not come. All chance for a surprise was gone. The provisions of the men had been destroyed the preceding day by the storm. They had nothing to eat that morning, could ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... just where some scarlet pomegranate blossoms hang out over the old brick walls by the canal-side, and where one splendid acanthus reminds me that its leaves inspired some of the most beautiful architecture in the world; where, too, the ceaseless chatter of the small boys cleaning crabs with scrubbing-brushes gives my ear a much-needed ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... neighborhood. She paused and stared hard at it. "Whose is it, Mrs. Biggs?" she asked awe-struck of the friendly charwoman, who happened to pass at the moment,—the charwoman who frequently came in to do a day's cleaning at her mother's lodging-house. Mrs. Biggs knew it well; "It's Sir Anthony Merrick's," she answered in that peculiarly hushed voice with which the English poor always utter the names of the titled classes. And ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... While he was cleaning himself as well as he could in his cabin basin and Bastin was boiling water for tea, suddenly I remembered the letter from the Danish mate Jacobsen. Concluding that it might now be opened as we had certainly parted with most of the Star of the South for the last time, I ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... convenience, he also made water as one means whereby to make the earth into so excellent a dwelling. And this is all the more manifest when we consider the advantages which we obtain from this same water for the cleaning of our household utensils, of our clothing, and of other matters.... When one goes into a grinding-mill one sees that the grindstone must always be kept wet and then one will get a still greater idea ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... after them; so I put down my things on a chair and started after them too, and would you believe it the biscuits came out of the corners positively cleaner than when they went in. The floor cleaned the biscuits instead of, as would have happened in London, the biscuits cleaning the floor, so you can be quite happy about ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... allows the liquid to stand a half-inch or so above it; so that when you put your brush in and rub it around, the paint is rinsed from it, and settles through the perforations to the bottom, leaving the liquid clear again above it. If you use this carefully, cleaning one brush at a time, not rubbing it too hard, and pulling the hairs straight by wiping them on a clean rag, you may keep your brushes in good condition quite easily. But they will need a careful soap-and-water washing every little while, besides. The ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... money-changers, were stainless, and therefore strong. Some of us are very fond of trying to set churches to rights. Let us begin with ourselves, lest, like careless servants, we leave dirty finger-marks where we have been 'cleaning.' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... old-fashioned chimney-piece that was fitted with a loose wooden mantel-board, from which hung a border of needlework. It was quite easy to lift up this board and slip the papers between it and the chimney-piece; the border completely screened the hiding-place, and, except at a spring-cleaning, the arrangement was not likely to be disturbed. Ulyth congratulated herself greatly upon her ingenuity. It was interesting to have a secret which nobody even guessed. She often looked at the chimney-piece, and chuckled as she thought of what ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... the grain was thrashed with a flail; the grass in the meadows was cut with a scythe. But, now, all this is changed; on the great prairies of the West, the wheat, rye and oats are cut by the reaper, and with a steady hum the thrashing-machine does its work of cleaning the grain. ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... Francisco died, when Borrow was lying in bed ruminating on his loss, he heard someone cleaning boots and singing in an unknown tongue, so he rang the bell. Antonio appeared. He had, he said, engaged himself to the Prime Minister at a high salary, but on hearing of Borrow's loss, he "told the Duke, though it was late at night, that he would not suit me; and here I am." Again he left Borrow. ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... here, all of you; I must give you orders for by and by, and arrange what each one will have to do. Come nearer, Dame Claude; let us begin with you. (Looking at her broom.) Good; you are ready armed, I see. To you I commit the care of cleaning up everywhere; but, above all, be very careful not to rub the furniture too hard, for fear of wearing it out. Besides this, I put the bottles under your care during supper, and if any one of them is missing, or if anything gets broken, you ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... lined up, still two paces apart and under the hawk-eyes of the guard. Then the first man from one end advanced to the pump, alongside which stood two soldiers with fixed bayonets with which the man was prodded if he evinced signs of lingering or dwelling unduly over his work. The duty involved cleaning out the sanitary pan, in which by the way dependence had to be placed upon the hands alone, no mop or cloth being allowed. Then the jug had to be refilled from the pump, which was a crazy old appliance worked ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... only a wretched deposit!" sighed Lampblack, and the rusty palette knife grumbled back, "My own life has been ruined in cleaning dirty brushes, and see what the gratitude of ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... Mrs. Partridge was very busy with her house-cleaning, and when the noontime came she could not leave her work to go to the school with her ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... habitable for her. It was dreadful to think of her being there alone at night, but her trouble was too great to leave much room for fear—and anyhow there was no choice. So while Juliet slept, she set about cleaning it, and hard work she found it. Great also was the labor afterward, when, piece by piece, at night or in the early morning, she carried thither every thing necessary to make abode in it ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... access to this apartment but Dr. Leatrim, his wife and son, and old Ralph. The latter kept it in order, for fear the women folk should disarrange his master's papers. He performed all the dusting and cleaning, and never was there a room kept more scrupulously neat. He had a private desk for his own use under one of the windows, in which he kept all the accounts that passed through his hands; and it was not an unusual ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... days were not so crowded, and although there was still plenty to keep the Bretton family busy, Pierre and Marie resumed their normal routine of life, having daily lessons with Monsieur le Cure, and aiding their mother in the regular round of household tasks. There was a thorough cleaning of the silk-house that it might be in readiness for the coming season; then there was the money from the cocoons, the wonderful shining francs which the family had earned together, to be invested. ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... explaining in a casual voice how many "m's" were required to make a newspaper column. In another part of the long room Arthur Weldon was leaning over a table containing the half-empty forms, as if critically examining them. Smith, arrayed in overalls and jumper, was cleaning and oiling the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... at short intervals on the surface; each mound represents the excavations from a perpendicular shaft, at the bottom of which the crystal water can be seen coursing along toward the city; they are merely man-holes for the purpose of readily cleaning out the channel of the kanaat. The water is conducted underground, chiefly to avoid the waste by evaporation and absorption in surface ditches. These kanaats are very extensive affairs in many places; ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... north-west to the balmy south-east that the natives set themselves particularly to win the favour of ghosts and spirits, and this they do by repairing the temples and clubhouses in which the spirits and ghosts are believed to dwell, and by cleaning and tidying up the open spaces around them. These repairs are the occasion of a festival accompanied by dances and games. Early in the morning of the festive day the shrill notes of the flutes and the hollow rub-a-dub of the drums are heard to proceed from the interior ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... get a shilling from you at last," said he, fondling the note; "but this will not quite pay up the last quarter's rent. There's about half a dollar more my due. You can come and do the spring cleaning, and then I'll call matters ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... The greater part of the tin is then thrown out and the surface rubbed over with a brush of tow to equalize the coating; and if not satisfactory the operation must be repeated. The vessels usually tinned in this manner are of copper and brass, but with a little care in cleaning and manipulating, iron can also be satisfactorily tinned by this means. The vessels to be tinned must always be sufficiently hot to keep the metal contained in them thoroughly fused. This is covering by ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... used by degrees to the idea of going and seeing that Jimmy who was now ruining her. A strange curiosity, nevertheless, drove her toward that conqueror, once a bike-cleaning workman, who was now topping the bill at Berlin and making as much money by himself as a whole program put together. He would receive her kindly, she was sure of that. Oh and then she wanted to tell him that ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... without a touch remaining of the workmanship of its original architects and sculptors. At this juncture the editor of the "Cornhill Magazine" asked me for an article on the restorations in Italy, and I profited by the invitation to write a scathing article on the cleaning up of the Duomo, which, falling under the attention of the government at Rome, provoked a telegram ordering peremptorily the cessation of all restoration on the church. I received the thanks of the Italian ministry and the formal request to inform it of any other similar operations ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... Mr. Bedwell went with a watering party to the shore; the tide had however reached the hole, and spoilt what had been collected during the night: after cleaning the hole again he visited our last year's wooding-place where he found some remains of our cuttings; but the greater part had been burnt. On his return to the watering-place the well was full, and the party commenced their ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... the Fort Saskatchewan jail, he felt safe from interference, at least until late in the spring. This would allow plenty of time for the melting snows to furnish the water necessary for the cleaning up of the dumps. After that the fate of his colony hung upon the decision of a judge somewhere down in the provinces. Thus Lapierre crowded his men to the utmost, and the increasing size of the black dump-heaps bespoke a record-breaking clean-up when the waters ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... actually taken in them. They are just as careful about clothing being aired and clean. Indeed, the main item of the Brazilian woman's housekeeping is the washing. The cooking is rather happy-go-lucky; and there is no use cleaning and polishing iron walls; they get ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... these blacking rivals and their ways, which might seem mysterious and uncalled for to those not in the secret, but which for himself had the highest significance. When Sam is first introduced at the "White Hart," he is in the very act of cleaning boots, and we have almost an essay on the various species of boots and polishing. We are told minutely that he was engaged in "brushing the dirt off a pair of boots . . . " There were two rows before him, one cleaned, the other ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... amount of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, you have to spend more than twice the labor in cleaning out the stables or yards, more than twice the labor of throwing or wheeling it to the manure pile, more than twice the labor of turning the manure in the pile, more than twice the labor of loading it on the carts or ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... to the high and dry church, the High Church as it was some fifty years since, before tracts were written and young clergymen took upon themselves the highly meritorious duty of cleaning churches, rather laughs at her sister. She shrugs her shoulders and tells Miss Thorne that she supposes Eleanor will have an oratory in the deanery before she has done. But she is not on that account a whit displeased. A few High Church vagaries do not, she thinks, sit amiss on ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... to them and try to find out when Mrs. Shaldin is expected back. They ought to know. They must be getting things ready against her return—cleaning her bedroom and fixing it up. Do you understand? But be careful to find out right. And also be very careful not to let on for whom you are finding it out. ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... I didn't think you fellows would be back so soon. I'm just cleaning up. I'm done now. How did practice go ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... good thing, Ready," observed Mrs. Seagrave; "and, at the same time, Juno and I will give the house a thorough cleaning ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... the time did seem very long indeed. Most of the boys Harry liked had gone to a treat to which he had not been asked. He was cross and dull. He had spent the whole morning in cleaning out the rabbit-hutch; he wanted something else to do, when, happening to be loitering about in a meadow by the side of the Squire's house, he saw a squirrel in ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... responsibility even in her own household, is narrowed to a very small point in life's affairs, and it is inevitable that she should suffer from it. The variety of her work also has dwindled. Cooking and house-cleaning follow each other in monotonous routine, with too much of it at planting and harvest seasons and too little at others. She has not even the pleasure of comparison and emulation in her daily work; it neither exercises her faculties nor stimulates ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... Thompson, this country has supported the war in great style—but there's been a lot of raw stuff in places where you wouldn't suspect it. I'm not knocking, y' understand. This is no time to knock. But when the war's over, we've got to do some house-cleaning." ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... eleemosynary round among the houses of persons of good lineage, the Brahmana entered one such house that he knew from before. And as he entered the house, he said, "Give." And he was answered by a female with the word, "Stay." And while the housewife was engaged, O king, in cleaning the vessel from which alms are given, her husband, O thou best of the Bharatas, suddenly entered the house, very much afflicted with hunger. The chaste housewife beheld her husband and disregarding the Brahmana, gave her lord water to wash his feet and face and also a seat and after ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... gone, and where it had been was a little tumbledown hut of earth and logs. It seemed to the old fisherman that he knew the little hut, and he looked at it with joy. And he went to the door of the hut, and there was sitting his old woman in a ragged dress, cleaning out a saucepan, and singing in a creaky old voice. And this time she was glad to see him, and they sat down together on the bench and drank tea without sugar, because they ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... bread and glass jars of cream, while near them lay the damp twisted roll of the morning's paper. There was everywhere a great chittering of sparrows, and the cable-cars, as yet empty, trundled down the cross streets, the conductors cleaning the windows and metal work. From far down at one end of the avenue came the bells of the Catholic Cathedral ringing for early mass; and a respectable-looking second girl hurried past him carrying her prayer-book. ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... poor relations, the Cooneys, lived in a two-story frame house on Centre Street, four doors from a basement dry-cleaning establishment, and staring full upon the show-window of an artificial-limb manufactory, lately ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... quarter deck on to which Sir George Grey had stridden, much needed cleaning up. In the north of New Zealand, a flag staff carrying the Union Jack, had been cut down by an insurgent chief. A settlement had been sacked, with completeness and the chivalry innate in the Maoris. No hurt was done the whites, that could be avoided, nor was there looting of property. ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... shore. The novice, who usually entered the service of the Hansa at the age of twelve, was compelled to serve an apprenticeship of seven years, during which his duties consisted also in cooking, cleaning, and washing for and in waiting upon the older clerks. Thereafter he advanced to the position of journeyman, his inauguration being attended by festive, highly suggestive, and, to the beholder, amusing ceremonies. These ceremonies began with a great drinking ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... lady rose slowly from the armchair in which she was sitting, busily engaged in cleaning her watch-chain by inserting a pin between every two links with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... entire battle in an announcement of the 22d of February, the German Great Headquarters said: "The pursuit after the winter battle in Mazurian Land is ended. In cleaning up the forests to the northwest of Grodno, and in the battles reported during the last few days in the region of the Bobr and the Narew, there have been captured to date one commanding general, two division commanders, four other generals, and in the neighborhood ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... lights in the new building—the evenest light comes from the north. Cement floor—good for cleaning but bad for the girls, so we are to have cork matting for them to stand on. Slide-in seats under the tables—that's so that a girl may stand or ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... set about cleaning out the dung in the cow-stable, Pelle scraping the floor under the cows and sweeping it up, Lasse filling the wheelbarrow and wheeling it out. At half-past five they ate their morning meal of salt herring ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... it swooped with its tiny head and struck me with its fangs in the lower thigh. With my knife I cut through its neck and it fell to writhing and struggling and twining its hundred legs into all manner of contortions; and then, cleaning my blade in the ground, I stabbed with it deep all round the wound, so that the blood might flow freely and wash the venom from its lodgement. And then with the blood trickling healthily down from my heel, I shouldered the meat and strode off, thankful for being so well quit of what might have ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... the serving of eggs it will be well to note that they have a tendency to adhere to china and to discolor silver. Therefore, in the washing of china and the cleaning of silver that have been used in the serving of raw or slightly cooked eggs, much care should be exercised. Dishes in which eggs of this kind have been served should first be washed in cool water in order to remove all the egg, and then they should be thoroughly washed in hot water. If the hot ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... water has stopped it, but I do not think it is really injured. A little cleaning will speedily ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... that 843,920 house-holders read with secret joy the paragraph in last week's papers stating that spring-cleaning is likely to cost the housekeeper this year considerably more than usual both for materials and labour; that 397,413 of them repeated it to their wives, suggesting that here was a chance for a real war-economy; and that one (a deaf man) persisted in the suggestion after his wife had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... cleaning that strange picture! I had been deep in duty for my sick neighbour - His besides my own—over several Sundays, Often, too, in the week; so with parish pressures, Baptisms, burials, doctorings, conjugal counsel - All the whatnots asked of a rural parson - Faith, ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... these chimney-sweeps were poor boys, and that their parents were so poor that they could not support their children, but were compelled to send them to Paris to earn their bread by creeping into and cleaning our hot and dirty chimneys, with great trouble, and at the risk of their lives. My story touched you, and you promised me never to be afraid of the little chimney-sweeps again. A short time afterward, you were awakened early in the morning ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... capable of being fastened by the thumb screw d, so as to secure the plate tightly upon the block. This block turns upon a swivle, b, which is attached to the table by the screw c, This block is only used for holding the plate while undergoing the first operation in cleaning. ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... relieved her mind, and she began to regard her captors with much curiosity, while they endeavoured by signs and words to converse with her. Unfortunately Meetuck was not with the party, he having been left on board ship to assist in a general cleaning of the cabin that had ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... incessantly: but these little irregularities seem to assist, rather than impede them, in the prosecution of their tasks. As to the men, one absorbing interest appears to govern them all. The whole day long they are mending boats, painting boats, cleaning boats, rowing boats, or, standing with their hands in their pockets, looking at boats. The children seem to be children in size, and children in nothing else. They congregate together in sober little groups, and hold mysterious conversations, in a dialect which we cannot understand. ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... you didn't think it; and what I'm going to do to-night is to take your lives to pieces—take them to pieces, an look close into them, as you've seen them do at the mill, perhaps, with a machine that wants cleaning. I want to find out what's wrong wi them, what they're good for, whose work they do—God's or the devil's ... First let me take the mill-hands. Perhaps I know most about their life, for I went to work in a cotton-mill when I was eight ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that in early spring I stayed to gather some white sweet violets, for the true wild violet is very nearly white. I stood close to a hedger and ditcher, who, standing on a board, was cleaning out the mud that the water might run freely. He went on with his work, taking not the least notice of an idler, but intent upon his labour, as a good and true man should be. But when I spoke to him he answered me in clear, well-chosen ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... a side door, seemed to leave the day's brightness behind her. The air indoors was chill, flat. A half-hearted little coal fire flickered in the grate, and Koga was cleaning silver at the table. Sammy took David Copperfield from the mantel and settled herself in ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... day when the older brother was off hunting Duck was cleaning some fish. She had been very cross to Little Brother, refusing to give him any food, and he was terribly hungry. Presently he came creeping up behind her and when he saw all the fish he became very angry. He took up a big club and before ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... should be worn. The chocolate and arrow-root had apparently been brought chiefly for the sake of their tins, and one of the Arabs illustrated their use by putting one of them down on a rock, chopping it in two with his sword, cleaning out the contents, and then restoring as well as he could the two halves to the original shape. Some of the children were about to taste the arrow-root scattered about the ground, but the sheik sharply forbade them to touch it, evidently thinking that it might be poison. Edgar was consulted, ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... groans would be succeeded by gladness, and they would thank the legislators who had slighted their remonstrances. When the cholera approached in 1849, our British Board of Health ordered a general cleaning out of stables, and a daily persistence in the practice. It was complained of as a great hardship; but the Board ascertained that owners of valuable race-horses cause their stables to be thoroughly cleaned daily, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... lowest stake allowed was a rouleau of fifty guineas, and there was never less than 20,000 guineas on the table. By the side of each player was a little stand on which to place his cup of tea, and a gilt bowl in which to put the rouleaux of guineas. The players, like servants when cleaning knives, wore leather sleeves to save their lace, breastplates of leather to protect their ruffles, shades on their brows to shelter their eyes from the great glare of the lamps, and, to keep their curls in order, broad-brimmed ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... going, the sweeping of a carpet in the room upstairs. Then behold a haggard, brain-weary man, fierce and dishevelled, and full of shattered masterpiece—expostulating. Other houses have their day of cleaning out this room, and their day for cleaning out that; but in the literary household there is one uniform date for all such functions, and that is "to-morrow." So that Mrs. Mergles makes her purifying raids with her heart in her mouth, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... thread, worsted, and a hundred other little necessaries, as they do now. As soon as they were gone, Edward, who was still castle-building, instead of offering his services to Alice, brought out his father's sword and commenced cleaning it. When he had polished it up to his satisfaction, he felt less inclined than ever to do any thing; so after dinner he took his gun and walked out into the forest that he might indulge in his reveries. He walked on, quite unconscious of the direction ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... too—cleaning out cesspools. The other day when he came home, I could do nothing ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... a fatality that a pair in their open case should have been lying on the sill of the window, where their owner had just been cleaning and oiling them. Hoxer, of course, had no certainty that they were loaded, but the change in Jeffrey's expression proclaimed it. He was sober enough now—the shock was all sufficient—as he sprang to the case. ...
— The Crucial Moment - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... I hate washing dishes like an owl does the day light, but I am not going to let you do my work and to-night you know the agreeable task of cleaning up belongs to me. I asked you to leave things alone when I went to the door and I don't think you play fair." Polly seized a cup with such vehemence that it slipped from her hand and crashed onto the floor, but neither ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... delightful change, and exhibited a picture of what Cyprus might become when developed by capital and enterprise. While the camp was being arranged I took my gun and strolled with the dogs into the narrow valley below the mill. The waterwheel was at work, and the people were engaged in cleaning cotton, as the machinery was adapted for both purposes of grinding corn or of ginning cotton when required. There were plenty of snipe in the marshes below the cotton-fields, for which rushes, low bushes of tamarisk and other shrubs, afforded excellent ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... unpopularity of Galileo smouldered for a time, until, by another noble imprudence, he managed to offend a semi-royal personage, Giovanni de Medici, by giving his real opinion, when consulted, about a machine which de Medici had invented for cleaning out the harbour of Leghorn. He said it was as useless as it in fact turned out to be. Through the influence of the mortified inventor he lost favour at Court; and his enemies took advantage of the fact to render his chair untenable. He resigned before his three years were ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... either end Of a long table in the centre of the room, busily engaged in cleaning their accoutrements, glanced up casually at his entrance; then, each vouchsafing him a preoccupied salutory mumble, they bent to their furbishing with the brisk concentration peculiar to "Service men" the world over. As an accompaniment to their ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... much. He let her take hold of Jim's hand and tell him she felt better, and the poor fellow went out in the shed, and cried like a baby. Race Miller stepped in just then. He always seemed to happen along at the right minute, and he set Jim to work cleaning some fish he'd caught. The thought of a good dinner soon made Jim laugh again; but that's the way ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... bed, his bath and his clothes, he required nothing save the constant society of his beloved mummies, of which no one wished to deprive him. These he dusted and cleansed and rearranged himself. Not even Lucy dared to invade the museum, and the mere mention of spring cleaning drove the Professor into displaying frantic rage, in which he ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... day and most hours of the night. He liked it, but he liked Port Adams more. He had two years longer to serve, but two years were too long for him in the throes of homesickness. He had grown wiser with his year of service, and, being now a house-boy, he had opportunity. He had the cleaning of the rifles, and he knew where the key to the store room was hung. He planned to escape, and one night ten Malaita boys and one boy from San Cristoval sneaked from the barracks and dragged one of the whale ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... observed, in the most protected corner, a flat stone, marked by fire, and near it, in the rocky ground, a pot-hole, evidently formed for grinding maize. The ashes of ancient fires were scattered about, and in cleaning them off his new-found hearth the man discovered a potsherd, apparently of a native olla or water-jar, and a chipped fragment of flint, too small to indicate whether it had formed part of an Indian arrowhead or had dropped from an old ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... must be able to hear well. The ears are very delicate, and once damaged are apt to become incurably deaf. No sharp or hard instrument should be used in cleaning the ear. The drum of the ear is a very delicate, tightly stretched skin which is easily damaged. Very many children have had the drums of their ears permanently injured by getting a box ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... spoken yet. It looks as if he were getting ready to do some outside cleaning, for he had on a life-preserver. Funny thing about it, though, that's not his work. He's not even on duty during the starboard watch. The man in the lookout saw him climb out on the bow, shout something ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... heaped in one corner of the room, swept up and left there by the big Schmicks to await the spring house cleaning season I presume. Tarnowsy at first eyed the heap curiously, then rather intently. Suddenly he strode across the room and gingerly rooted among the odds and ends with the toe ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... Christmas Day before the last. Having pocketed this he proceeded to the kitchen, where, lying on the dresser ready to put away, there was a goodly store of silver forks and spoons which Bessie had been busily engaged in cleaning that morning. These he also transferred, to the extent of several dozens, to the capacious pockets of the tattered military great-coat that he wore. Whilst thus employed he was much disturbed by the barking of the dog Stomp, the same animal that had mauled him so severely a few ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... room upon the floor, till at the last he left him lying, and ran behind the stove, whence he laughed him loudly to scorn. The student crawled back to the bench; but in a quarter of an hour the Kobold began his work anew, sweeping, cleaning, wiping. The two lay there quaking with fear:—the one he felt quite softly over, when he came to him; but the other he flung again upon the ground, and again broke out, at the back of the stove, into a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... has many by-products," returned his uncle. "The lint that cannot be used for spinning is made into cotton wadding to pad quilts, skirts, and coat linings; and cotton waste is excellent for cleaning machinery. Ripe cotton fiber furnishes an ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... the household goddesses, and in her journal the receiving of the first copy of her new volume of poems is sandwiched in between the making of twenty-two gallons of blackberry wine and thirty-three bottles of ketchup. House-cleaning and "Tintoretto"; pickles and "Mona Lisa"; hearth-painting and "Bacharach wine" were all closely connected in her every-day experience. From a ride through the blue hills she would return with a poem singing in her heart, radiant with sun, ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... he had caught sight of the dirty girl cleaning the child, and he was anxious that his visitors should see nothing further of a character to give them a bad impression of the establishment. "Pray, doctor, follow me," he repeated, and understanding that an example was necessary, he turned to the girl, exclaiming, "What business have you ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... gentlemen. Martha remained as firm as at first in her belief that if they did not make haste and get ready to defend themselves, they would all be destroyed. The major's first care had been to see that the arms and ammunition were in a serviceable state. The former evidently required cleaning; with the powder he was satisfied. Though no leaden pipes were procurable, as bamboo canes serve every purpose for which the former are used in other countries, a leaden cistern and some pigs of lead ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... the days of modern "cold pack" canning, mothers used to assemble their little home groups in the spring and, in spite of sundry hidings under tables on the part of reluctant Johnnies and Susies, dutifully portion out herb tea or sulphur in molasses. Spring cleaning could never stop short of "cleansing the blood!" And after a monotonous winter of salt pork and fried potatoes no doubt heroic measures were necessary to make up for an ill-chosen diet. Nowadays we recognize no such seasonal need. We carry our surplus of fruits ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose
... life (if we must tell "the secrets of the prison-house") in which he has more enjoyment of himself and his art, than that in which after his work is over, and with furtive sidelong glances at what he has done, he is employed in washing his brushes and cleaning his pallet for the day. Afterwards, when he gets a servant in livery to do this for him, he may have other and more ostensible sources of satisfaction—greater splendour, wealth, or fame; but he will not be so wholly in his art, nor will his art have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... sometimes think. You have to be out so late. If you only knew, Monsieur, how poor Paul is forced to work even at night! It tires him so, and then it costs so much. I beg your pardon for leaving those gloves like that before you. I was cleaning them. He does not like cleaned gloves, though; he says it always shows. Well, I am a woman, and I don't notice it. And then I take so much care of all that. It is necessary, and everything costs so dear. You see I—Gustave, don't ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... Don Quixote; "I'll help you in everything," and so he did, sifting the barley for him and cleaning out the manger; a degree of humility which made the other feel bound to tell him with a good grace what he had asked; so seating himself on a bench, with Don Quixote beside him, and the cousin, the page, Sancho Panza, and the landlord, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... again urged Michel to go a-hunting that he might if possible leave us some provision, tomorrow being the day appointed for his quitting us, but he showed great unwillingness to go out and lingered about the fire under the pretence of cleaning his gun. After we had read the morning service I went about noon to gather some tripe de roche, leaving Mr. Hood sitting before the tent at the fireside arguing with Michel; Hepburn was employed ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... still none of the men rode out to their ordinary work. There could be only one meaning. They were held back to join the expedition. They were at this very moment, perhaps, cleaning their guns in the bunkhouse. Noon brought no action. They trooped cheerfully towards the house in answer to the noon-gong. She heard them laughing and jesting. What cold-blooded fiends they were to be able to conduct themselves in this manner ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... any particulars, because I felt that Mistress Lucy would not like her affairs discussed. He demurred at first, saying that we could not tell when we might have to put to sea; but on my reminding him that the work of refitting and cleaning after the voyage would take some time, and promising to return within a ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... story of the wild and roaming career of a ramshackle old railroad car which has been given ROY and his companions for a troop meeting place. The boys who have spent a hard day cleaning and repairing the car, fall asleep in it. In the darkness of the night, and by a singular error of the railroad people, the car is "taken up" by a freight train and instead of being left at a designated point several ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... Vigan might easily be made a charming halting-place for tourists in these regions. The pulling down of a few ancient, ill- favoured streets, a wholesale cleaning and white-washing, a general reparation of the town from end to end, open spaces utilized as public gardens—all this might be done at half the expense of the supernumerary statues now being raised all over France. Sanitation first, statues afterwards, should be the maxim of its ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... through the pretext of religion, the infected crew wrought on the pious feelings of the good admiral, inducing him at every landing to hold mass instead of cleaning the foul ship. Thus through petty intrigue and grave neglects, they brought disaster and sorrow on their leader and confusion on their own heads. Their religion, never deep, could not be expected to keep Terredo from the ship's bottom, ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... very gratifying to the engine-driver of course, but much more so to Bob himself, whose highest earthly ambition was to become, as he styled it, an engineer. When that aspiring youth came home that night after cleaning his lamps, he wiped his oily hands on a bundle of waste, and sat down beside his sire to inquire considerately into his state of body, and to give him, as he expressed it, the ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Polishing, cleaning, and scrubbing," she said. "In short, doing very much what Mrs. Robinson's little maid of all-work does down in the ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... house, and keep the children out of mischief. We shall want some cooking and cleaning, I ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... Jessamine, said it was her only fault. The hair was clean, was abundant, was glossy, but do what you would with it, it never looked like other people's. And at church, after Saturday night's wash, it shone like the best brass fender after a Spring cleaning. In short, it was conspicuous, which does not become ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... everything necessary was the only kindness that can be shown to them, since they have forgotten the habits of their state of Nature. She has been very exact since this conversation in feeding and cleaning them, and does everything in her power to make amends for their loss ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... and salam'd to his wife. As soon as she saw the babe she marvelled at his fashion and, sending for a wet-nurse, committed him for suckling to her and set apart for her a place; and the woman fell to tending him and cleaning him, and the house prospered for the master and dame had charge of it[FN558] during the days of suckling. And when the boy was weaned they fed him fairly[FN559] and took sedulous charge of him, so he became accustomed to bespeak the man with, "O my papa," and the woman with, "O my mamma," believing ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton |
