"Ironing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in his high chair as good as gold, a precious, watching me doing of the ironing. Get along with ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... stranger, I shall be in nobody's way,' said Miss Tox, 'and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs Richards will do her mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever it is, without minding me: and you'll smoke your pipe, too, if you're ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... are you very busy just now?" asked Lady Mary, coming up to the table where her nurse was ironing some lace. ...
— In The Forest • Catharine Parr Traill
... After ironing the few little things Trudy shampooed her hair with scented soap and by the time its reddish loveliness was dry it was high noon and she repaired to her bedroom to mend and write letters. At one o'clock, in the process of dressing, she ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... three eggs, add one-half pound of sugar, and one-half pound of finely cut figs, one-half pound of either blanched almonds cut into long slices, or cut up walnuts. Heat a large pan, pass ironing-wax over surface, lay in waxed paper, and drop spoonfuls of mixture on paper, same distance apart. Bake very slowly in very moderate oven. Remove and let cool; then take paper out with the macaroons, turn over and place hot cloths on wrong; side, ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... dairying, domestic science, drawing, dress-making, electricity, embroidery, engineering, fancy work, farming, floriculture, gardening, glazing, harness-making, house decoration, half-tone engraving, housework, horticulture, ironing, knife work, knitting, lace-making, laundering, leather work, manual training, mattress-making, millinery, needlework, nursing, painting, paper-hanging, photography, plastering, plate-engraving, plumbing, ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... AND CLOTHES DRYER.—William P. Adams, Brooklyn, N.Y.—This invention relates to a new and useful improvement in an article for the laundry, and consists in an adjustable ironing table, and in combination therewith ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... her search, Lucy returned to the house, and there found Deborah ironing at the long table in the hall, and crooning away her one dismal song of ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the door, and led me in. It was an awful experience. Dame Shand stood at her table ironing. She was as tall as Mrs. Mitchell, and that was enough to prejudice me against her at once. She wore a close-fitting widow's cap, with a black ribbon round it. Her hair was grey, and her face was as grey ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... in the corner stirred again; And the carved dog, curled in his arms, awoke, Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke. It piled in a maze round the ironing-place, And there on the snowy table wide Stood a Chinese lady of high degree, With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face . . . Yet she put away all form and pride, And laid her glimmering veil aside With a childlike smile for Chang ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... and good woman she was—who when she noticed that her husband's temper was causing him annoyance, took pains to help him to get rid of it. To relieve his sufferings I have known her search the house for a last month's morning paper and, ironing it smooth, lay it warm and neatly folded on his ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... and leading him to the hall, she directed him to a room which had at one time been fitted as a laundry, and in which was an ironing bench. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... orphans, for, as I said before, the most deformed and helpless, and maimed and sick, are the peculiar objects of Doa Margarita's care; nevertheless, we saw various healthy, happy-looking girls, busied in various ways, washing and ironing, and sewing, whose very eyes gleamed when we mentioned her name, and who spoke of her with a respect and affection that it was pleasant to witness. Truly, this woman is entitled to happy dreams and soft slumbers! The remainder of her fortune she employs in the festivals and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Nicholas saw on a chair a large woolen coverlet, which was used for the ironing-table; he seized it, and adroitly threw it over the head of Francois, who, in spite of all his efforts, finding himself entangled in its thick folds, could make no use of his arms. Then Nicholas threw himself upon him, and, with the aid of his mother, carried him into the ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... what a violent headache your servant suffered from the other day after ironing all those clothes you had in the wash? She owed that headache entirely to this work which she did for you. She had remained too long standing over the coals over which her flat-irons were being heated. You know already that when ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... into this bad habit myself; but a little incident, which I will relate, cured me. Not many years after I had attained my majority, a poor widow, named Blake, did my washing and ironing. She was the mother of two or three little children, whose sole dependence for food and raiment was on the ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... to her country, had bought back this house, which was that of her deceased parents, with a part of the sum given to her by the stranger at the birth of her son. She had invested the rest; then she worked at making gowns or at ironing linen for the people of Etchezar, and rented, to farmers of land near by, two lower rooms, with the stable where they placed ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... [it] know at first sight, and which is totally different from Chelsea, or Derby, or Worcestershire, or Staffordshire. This I admit. One peculiarity Mr. S. Martin observed. The bottoms of the saucers have very slight undulations, looking, as he said, like a ribbon that requires ironing to be perfectly flat and smooth. This, when he showed me, I also noticed; and, I must add, I have seen the same in real Chinese china; but he told me he could distinguish better, and that it was not the same. Also, there is a uniformity ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... to work as chiropodists to keep the feet of the prisoners in good condition, and the laundrymen, besides washing and ironing all the clothes, sheets and pillowcases, had to wash and disinfect all the blankets once a month. There were no walls surrounding the prison building, but the reservation being the headquarters of an army corps with barracks on all sides, escapes by ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... chivalrous determination he visited his lovely and all unconscious mistress the next day, but the fair lady was busy ironing.—"I shall see her again this evening," thought he, as he turned slowly towards the town; and see her that evening he did. They rambled out towards the cape, or promontory, almost invariably the scene of their summer evening ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... thrifty a son-in-law as Fidelio promises to be to comfort his old age. The action now begins in the courtyard of the prison, where, before the jailer's lodge, Marcellina is performing her household duties—ironing the linen, to be specific. Jaquino, who has been watching for an opportunity to speak to her alone (no doubt alarmed at the new posture which his love affair is assuming), resolves to ask her to marry him. The duet, quite in the Mozartian vein, breathes simplicity throughout; plain ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... I were to swear and go on in that ridiculous way over every little thing I do for you, I wonder what you'd think of it! Brushing your hats, ironing your ties, putting your trousers into stretchers—and if I ask you to fasten a few buttons, you blaspheme. If you had the worries on your shoulders I have on mine! Cook's in one of her tempers to-day, just because ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... what's the matter? You been overworking again, ironing my shirts and collars when they ought to go to ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... at all, called her "girl," thus: "Girl, get down one of those Number Seventeens for me—with the pink ribbons." Ray did not resent the tone. She thought about Miss Jevne as she worked. She thought about her at night when she was washing and ironing her other shirtwaist for next day's wear. In the Halsted Street Bazaar the girls had been on terms of dreadful intimacy with those affairs in each other's lives which popularly are supposed to be private knowledge. They knew the sum which each earned per week; how much they ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... failures would of course get into the papers, and chagrin, dismay and general discomfort would be my earthly lot. I am not ambitious to undertake teaching the family to rock the cradle, fry doughnuts, do the family ironing and coax our stray hens into the coop, all in one motion. Nor am I impatient to get up in the moonlight with the idea buzzing in my brain that burglars have arrived, and after putting two or three pounds of lead into our best cow, to creep back to bed feeling badly, like ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... soldier. He sent for us. We come to Memphis, Tennessee in a wagon. We lived there five or six years. Pa got a pension till he died. Both my parents was field hands in slavery. Ma took in washing and ironing in Memphis. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... sitting on the back porch and his daughter was ironing just inside the door. Both seemed surprised and happy to see the interviewer and the daughter placed a comfortable chair for her as far as the dimensions of the small porch would permit from the heat of the charcoal bucket and irons. Remembering that his earlier recollections had ended with the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Park showed signs of serious decay, he saved the hieroglyphics by ironing it with melted parafine. He makes us think of the juggler who can keep a dozen balls in the air as if it were an ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... If a double one is used, prepare the side for the confinement which will permit the physician to use his right hand,—that will be the right side of the patient as she lies in bed. One objection to a double bed is its tendency to sag. This tendency can be obviated however by placing an ironing board under the spring from side to side, or by using shelves from a book case. This expedient will support the mattress, thereby rendering the bed firm and free from any sagging tendency. The position of ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... did, not in so many words, but that was what I thought he meant. It was like this, sir," continued Mrs. Brunton, as they stood face to face on the wet gravel: "just about this time yesterday I was busy ironing, when my nephew, the lad you used to send with letters, who's here again for his summer holidays, comes to me an' says, 'You're wanted.' So I went, and there was a young gentleman looking fit to drop. He'd a bag with ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... through the open door, was wide awake. Customers came in for foaming tankards of beer, and sometimes a little girl, with a jug hidden under her apron, would appear, with a request that it might be filled for 'mother', who was ironing. Indeed, the number of women who were ironing that afternoon, and wanted to quench their thirst, was something wonderful; but Miss Twexby seemed to know all about it as she put a frothy head on each jug, and received the silver in exchange. At last, however, even Martha the wide-awake ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... some people who "make" time for everything, and this remarkable mother was one. That winter she baked bread for every English bachelor ranchman within ten miles. She did their washing and ironing, and never neglected her own, either. She knitted socks for them, and made and sold quantities of Saskatoon berry jam. When spring came she had over fifty dollars of her own, with which she promptly bought a cow. Then late in March ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... ahead. This young daughter of hers, with her directness and her smiling ignoring of the small subterfuges of life, rather frightened her. The terrible honesty of youth! All these years of ironing the wrinkles out of life, of smoothing the difficulties between old Anthony and Howard, and now a third generation to contend with. A pitilessly frank and unconsciously cruel generation. She turned and eyed ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... presided over that department of household economy gave her always so warm a welcome that the child came to think of the faithful woman as one of her choicest friends. Working with her over a little ironing board, Barbara quickly became expert in all the finer and more delicate operation of her art, or as ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... appear well pressed. It's a slogan of mine. Clothes may not make the man, but neatness often goes a long way toward making the opportunity. Don't you worry about me becoming baggy, Lilly. I'm going to send one of those folding ironing boards up from the ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... was killed by lightning. She was ironing and was in a hurry to get through and get the supper on for her master, Early Hurt. I was the oldest child, and I always was scared of lightning. A dreadful storm was goin' on. I was under the bed and I heard the thunder ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... amount of money, and money Alice had not—not even enough to pay a Chinaman for "doing up" one of her pretty muslins. Neither had she the facilities for doing them herself, had she been skilled in that sort of labor; for even to do your own washing and ironing pre-supposes the usual conveniences of a laundry, and these did not belong to the furniture of the outside kitchen. She had not worn her linen lawn since the visit to the mill. The dust which blew freely through every crack of the shrunken boards precluded ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... correct relation between the weight of the storage heat mass above the heating element, and the weight of the sole plate beneath the heating element. Upon this relation depends good ironing results. ...
— The Consumer Viewpoint • Mildred Maddocks
... three months out of doors, for learning to swim, and rowing twenty miles on the Muskingum River, and for sailing a boat without help for fifty miles. They also received extra honors for cooking, and for learning and making a mattress out of the twigs of trees; for long walks, and for washing and ironing, ...
— Ethel Hollister's Second Summer as a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... scent of the jasmine all importunate down in the shrubbery, and red and yellow showing up long since on the wooded hills. Not a soul in the place but is glad to have Fruen at home again; the flag, too, does its part. 'Tis like a Sunday; the maids have put clean aprons on, fresh from the ironing. ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... best," she replied, "for a poor woman, with four children to provide for, to get along, if she has to depend upon washing and ironing for a living. But when so many neglect ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... were taken out of the wash-tub, starched, and hung over a chair in the sunshine, and then laid on the ironing-board. And now came the glowing iron. "Mistress widow," said the shirt-collar, "little mistress widow, I feel quite warm. I am changing, I am losing all my creases. You are burning a hole in me. Ugh! I ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... field was to be brought into cultivation as soon as any labour could be had. Minna was looking infinitely better already, and Averil and Cora were full of designs for rival housewifery, Averil taking lessons meantime in ironing, dusting, and the arts of the kitchen, and trusting that in the two years' time, the skeletons would have given place—if not indeed to houses, to well-kept fields. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proceeded to Paris at the beginning of 1831. Her establishment there was of the simplest. It consisted of three little rooms on the fifth story (a mansarde) in a house on the Quai Saint-Michel. She did the washing and ironing herself, the portiere assisting her in the rest of the household work. The meals came from a restaurant, and cost two francs a day. And thus she managed to keep within her allowance. I make these and the following statements on her own authority. ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Garland would say after the girls had kissed one another, "I was up early this morning—soon after dawn. Madge Blair and I had our arms in the tubs by half-past three, and she had got the pot to boil before that. So now I am ready for the ironing, and—" ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... and as Mr Fleming do wish little Meg and Robin to go along with us, which are like my own children, and as he's to be in the same ship, I'm not the woman to say No. I'm a good hand at washing and ironing, and sewing, and keeping a little shop, or anything else as turns up; and there's ten years' good work in me yet; by which time little Meg'll be a stout, grown-up young woman; to say nothing of Posy, who's old enough to get her own living now. I can't say as ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... dimpling. "Well, Mury, see here, you nip round and wait upon me the best you know, and I'll give you an elegant present! I wear muslins most all the time in summer, and I can't endoor to have them mussed. You keep carrying them away and ironing them out nice and smooth, without bothering me to tell you. See! I need lots of attention; there's no getting away from that, but I'll make it worth your while. You just put your mind to it, and I guess ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... humble conductor into the small but cosy living-room behind, which the large number of its occupants caused to appear even smaller than it was. John Dudgeon was there, and Mrs. John, and several offshoots of the Dudgeon tree. Mrs. Dudgeon was ironing at a table beneath the one small window, in the fading light. She was a staid and dapper matron, with here and there the faintest line of care upon her comely face. A couple of the children were rolling upon the hearthrug in the ruddy glow of the fire, ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... Edy turned to her ironing-table, as if she didn't care for company; and Dumps and Tot, seeing that she was tired of them, went back ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... yarn to attend upon. Lucretia and self rinse, scour through many waters, get out, dry, attend to, bring in, do up and sort 110 score of yarn; this with baking and ironing. Then went ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... feet of any dwelling,[391] or require that all tanks with a capacity of more than ten gallons, used for the storage of gasoline, be buried at least three feet under ground,[392] or which prohibit washing and ironing in public laundries and wash houses, within defined territorial limits, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.[393] Equally sanctioned by the Fourteenth Amendment is the demolition and removal by cities of wooden buildings erected within defined fire limits contrary to regulations in ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... bowed, and at the same time, with Parisian adroitness, and with the presence of mind that pride can lend, she turned round to shut the door in a glass partition through which Hippolyte might have caught sight of some linen hung by lines over patent ironing stoves, an old camp-bed, some wood-embers, charcoal, irons, a filter, the household crockery, and all the utensils familiar to a small household. Muslin curtains, fairly white, carefully screened this lumber-room—a capharnaum, ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... on a piece of soft flannel, ironing on the wrong side. If flannel is not at hand, try an old ...
— Things Mother Used To Make • Lydia Maria Gurney
... man is able to keep good servants for them, for black servants are cheap down in this region, and by the way, dear, when you go up to Crabtree again, you must start an inquiry for a good colored cook among your lady friends. Tell them you want a good one, who understands washing and ironing and all about cooking. At present we boys do all the cooking down here and we send our laundry up to Crabtree, where there are only three Chinamen to the ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... parson there, it wouldn't; but all I know is, what if I had been breaking my back in the potato-patch since morning? so she'd broken her's over the oven; and what if I did need nine hours' sound sleep? I could chop and saw without it next day, just as well as she could do the ironing, to say nothing of my being a great stout fellow,—there wasn't a chap for ten miles round with my muscle,—and she with those blue veins on her forehead. Howsomever that may be, I wasn't used to letting her do it by herself, and so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... sufficient to deter the dainty from penetrating beyond—they went, and into a miserable room where was scarcely space for them to stand, so huddled was it with broken furniture and ragged children. A fire was burning in a shattered grate, and an untidy woman stood ironing by a table whereon was the remnant of their meager dinner. Her husband crouched over the coals as if the day was not warm and sunny. His clothes hung about his limbs in large folds, and his sunken eyes told that disease was making fearful ravages upon him. Madame La Blanche ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... being occupied all day and night in stitching, hemming, ripping, combing, ironing, crimping, for her mistress; reading to her when in bed,—for the girl was mistress of the two languages, and had a sweet voice and manner—could take no share in Madame Fribsby's soirees, nor indeed was she much missed, or considered of sufficient ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... felt that she also ought to resume her scarf, kiss her cousin's cheek, and trip away homeward. If she lingered much later dusk would draw on, and Fanny would be put to the trouble of coming to fetch her. It was both baking and ironing day at the rectory, she remembered—Fanny would be busy. Still, she could not quit her seat at the little parlour window. From no point of view could the west look so lovely as from that lattice with the garland of jessamine round it, whose white ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... apparition failed to be impressed the clerk turned tail and fled. The ghost returned by a short cut, and the clerk found his wife calmly ironing the parson's surplice. He did not return to the ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... and went over the way. Here she found a somewhat tidy woman at work ironing. Nobody else in the room. She made known her errand. The woman looked ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... tom, who, as I have said, was almost a man when I was a little child, came into the nursery where I was playing, and where the maids were ironing. Upon some slight provocation or contradiction from him, I flew into a violent passion; and, snatching up one of the boxirons which the maid had just laid down, I flung it across the table at my brother. He stooped instantly; and, thank God! it missed him. There was a redhot ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... later, while old black mammy was ironing in the sitting room, Kintchin came in at the door which always stood open, and looking about, slowly went up to the old woman and inquired if ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... the matter in a charitable light, Nan consented, and went cheerfully on with her work, wondering how she could have thought ironing an infliction, and been so ungrateful for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in total darkness, but through the narrow open door in the middle of the left wall one could see what was going on in Barbara's little bow-windowed room. This was quite brightly lighted, for she was ironing and crimping ruffs for the neck, small lace ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in the same tenement-house as the Coupeaus and Lorilleux, where she took in ironing, as well as added to her income by less reputable means. When Gervaise Coupeau's laundry was at the height of its success Clemence got regular employment there, but when business began to go ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... she prescribed and bandaged, cut out garments, superintended washing, and initiated women into the secrets of starching and ironing. Day by day she held a morning and evening service, and it was with difficulty that she prevented the one from merging into the other. On Sabbath the yard became strangely quiet: all connected with it were clothed and clean, and in a corner stood a table with a ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... had written to say he would come over on the Friday which followed January 5. There is no reason to suppose he did not fulfil his promise. On the Friday the woman was suffering from neuralgia. In the evening, however, she was in her usual health and spirits, and did her ironing up to eight o'clock. She went to bed between half-past nine and ten, and took with her a tumbler of water. In ten minutes the little girl and her brother went upstairs. They went to the mother, who was in bed with ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... She was ironing at the time, and her back was partly toward me. She turned about with a startled or wondering look in her face and said, "What do ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and there it stays—till it loosens. One often sees them stop to give the right or left a twist. The fullness in the front is absolutely essential for them to squat as they are so accustomed to do while performing all sorts of work, such as washing, ironing, or, in the market place, selling all conceivable kinds of wares. The waist for the rich and poor alike is of one pattern, the only variation being in the quality. It has a plain piece loose at the waist line for the body, ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... washerwoman's cottage, it had a little garden in front of it. Through the window I saw the girls ironing by candle-light, I walked about till quite dark, then knocked at the door. The short one opened it, and seeing me shut the door saying, "Oh! you musn't call." So ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... there were a Medical Inspector in the army who was not a first rate judge of the art of folding and ironing a sheet or pillow-slip; of the particular tuck which brought out the outlines of the corners of a mattress, as seen through a counterpane; and of the art and mystery of cleaning a floor. It did seem as if they had all reached office through ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... of the houses and all domestic work, and was divided into Consistory, Dormitory and Kitchen Groups. There were also Washing, Ironing and Mending Groups, and perhaps some others. The beds, rooms, halls and lamps had to be attended to every day, water and towels provided, and the "Dormitory" and "Consistory Groups," situated as the Brook Farmers ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... consoled herself by giving the apprentice, who was ironing hose and towels by her side, a little push. Gervaise had a cap belonging to Mme Boche in her hand and was ironing the crown with a round ball, when a tall, bony woman came in. She ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... most unromantic wedding. The streets were full of the Saturday night crowd of pleasure seekers. The chapel was next to a Chinese laundry; glancing in at the door through the steam she got a swift vision of two Chinamen ironing collars vigorously. Outside the chapel door stood a gawky-looking group—a young sailor, very fat and jolly-looking was being married to a rather elderly woman. Both had short white kid gloves that showed a little rim of red wrist; ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... will be good and help me with the little boys, won't you, Miss Hoodie dear?" said Martin. "There's some ironing I do want to get done for your Mamma this afternoon, if I could leave you three alone for ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... up the coat, first press the border of fronts; stretch into shape, pin to an ironing-board, cover with a damp cloth and press with a fairly hot iron until the cloth is dry. This will prevent the coat from drawing up, as the ribs are inclined to do. For sewing, use a blunt-pointed needle to avoid splitting the wool. Sew up the side and shoulder-seams, taking ...
— Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet • Anonymous
... going by, the shutting-up of shop-shutters. Not until the light porter announced that her nocturnal sweetbread was ready, did Mrs. Sparsit arouse herself from her reverie, and convey her dense black eyebrows - by that time creased with meditation, as if they needed ironing out-up-stairs. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... her husband in as many months. The boys had, in a measure, justified their father's faith in them, since Rachel's illness, and Dorothy was released from much of her out-door work; but the silence of the kitchen, when she was there alone with her ironing and dish-washing, was a heavier burden than ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... private opinion that the little shifts and struggles we poor girls have to undergo beforehand give a peculiar relish to our fun when we get it. This fact will account for the rapturous mood in which Polly found herself when, after making her bonnet, washing and ironing her best set, blacking her boots and mending her fan, she at last, like Consuelo, "put on a little dress of black silk" and, with the smaller adornments pinned up in a paper, started for the Shaws', finding it ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... touch. One there was, however, who gave to Maude every possible assistance, and this was John. "Having tried his hand," as he said, "at everything in Marster Norton's school," he proved of invaluable service—sweeping, dusting, washing dishes, cleaning knives, and once ironing Dr. Kennedy's shirts, when old Hannah was in what he called her "tantrums." But alas for John! the entire print of the iron upon the bosom of one, to say nothing of the piles of starch upon another, and more than all, the tremendous scolding which he received from the owner ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... that Sam had his ditch done the boys began to come in with loads of cane and palmetes. The palmetes are plants out of which what we call "palm-leaf fans" are made. They grow in bunches right out of the ground in many southern swamps. Each leaf is simply a palm leaf fan that needs ironing out flat, except that the edge consists of long points which are cut off in making ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... so full of an ecstatic melancholy, that I dropped the curtain. And my thought ranged lovingly over our household—prim, regular, and perfect: my old aunt embroidering in the breakfast-room, and Rebecca and Lucy ironing in the impeachable kitchen, and not one of them with the least suspicion that Adam had not really waked up one morning minus a rib. I wandered in fancy all over the house—the attics, my aunt's bedroom ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... however on making terms with the boy's relations; and with some misgivings on Ambrose's part, the two—since business hours were almost over—walked together to the Temple and to the little house, where Perronel was ironing under her window. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... successful. They stood in a circle and were told (Howard rubbed his hands in a dainty manner) that "this is the way we wash our clothes." This did not appeal to them; they knew too well how they washed theirs, and they saw no fun in imitating such every-day affairs as washing and ironing. ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... tried to overbear us with the gentility of her former places; and would tell the lady over whom she reigned, that she had lived with folks worth their three and four hundred thousand dollars, who never complained as she did of the ironing. Yet she had a sufficient regard for the literary occupations of the family, Mr. Johnson having been an author. She even professed to have herself written a book, which was still in manuscript, and preserved somewhere ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... off and wraped it up in a towel that was drying in front of the fire, and laid it on a bundle of clothes ready for ironing that was on the table. Then he ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... unskilled, hands. To her surprise, she discovered that the work for which she had so often lightly given orders was beyond her strength. Try as she would, she could not accomplish the task of washing and ironing table napkins and delicate embroidered linen pieces in the way she knew they should be done. Will power can accomplish a good deal, but it cannot always make up for ignorance, and the girl who had mastered difficult subjects in college, and astonished music masters in the old world with her ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... to her own experience says—"I thought I was going to Spelman to learn books, but I soon found that sewing, washing and ironing, sweeping and dusting, cooking and all sorts of work are included in getting ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... brass;—and on a still pleasanter object than these; for some of the rays fell on Dinah's finely molded cheek and lit up her pale-red hair to auburn, as she bent over the heavy household linen which she was mending for her aunt. No scene could have been more peaceful, if Mrs. Poyser, who was ironing a few things that still remained from the Monday's wash, had not been making a frequent clinking with her iron, and moving to and fro whenever she wanted it to cool; carrying the keen glance of her blue-gray eye from the kitchen to the dairy, where Hetty was making up the butter, and from the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... mother's, to whom Ernest had been always much attached as she also to him, for she had known him ever since he had been five or six years old. Her name was Susan. He sat down in the rocking-chair before her fire, and Susan went on ironing at the table in front of the window, and a smell of hot ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... into the basin, and then began washing in a very unartistic, rough way, evidently tearing them; and one, before wetting it, he held up to the candle, and carelessly set it on fire. Then he spread a blanket, and took them out, and began ironing them; but the iron was too hot, and he was evidently singeing them horribly. "Never mind," he exclaimed, "I have a magic ironing machine, which will do the work in a moment." He produced a box, with a handle like a churn, put the wet half-singed bundle in, and giving one turn of ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... cot she took up her sewing—she was making herself a new dress; or else the great kettle was steaming on the hob, and the women stood over the washing-tubs. On the following evening they worked on either side of the ironing-table, the candle burning brightly and their vague woman's chatter sounding pleasant in the hush of the little cottage. A little after nine they were in bed, and so the days went softly, like happy, trivial dreams. It was ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... marched her home and gave her a bran mash. Then we turned to our work in the house while the men sat and smoked and spat on the veranda, discussing the drought for an hour, at the end of which time they went to help someone else with their stock. I made up the fire and we continued our ironing, which had been interrupted some hours before. It was hot unpleasant work on such a day. We were forced to keep the doors and windows closed on account of the wind and dust. We were hot and tired, and our feet ached so that we could ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... while, after that talk with her mother, Mona worked with a will. She swept, and scrubbed, and polished the stove and the windows and helped with the washing and ironing, until Lucy laughingly declared there would soon be nothing left for ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... work—some to wind worsted for a woman who paid them a liard for each ball, others to shell peas for a neighbouring traiteur—all rejoicing that they were able to earn something. The elder girls, under the directions and with the assistance of Sister Frances, completed making, washing, and ironing, half a dozen little caps, to supply a baby-linen warehouse. At the end of the day, when the sum of the produce of their labours was added together, they were surprised to find, that, instead of one, they could purchase two ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... August; and, after some difficulties and hardships on account of poverty, finally settled in what appears to have been then a wilderness, "the woods of Watervliet, near Niskeyuna, about seven miles northwest of Albany." In the mean time Ann Lee had supported herself by washing and ironing in New York, and her husband had misconducted himself so grossly toward her that they finally separated, he ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... the outfit, I continued on west to the new ranch, while the men began the fall branding at home. On arriving on the Double Mountain range, I found the outfit in the saddle, ironing up a big calf crop, while the improved herd was the joy and pride of my foreman. An altitude of about four thousand feet above sea-level had proved congenial to the thoroughbreds, who had acclimated nicely, ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... it hadn't been for mother, who hated the language like pyson, I do believe I should soon have mastered it so as to speak it as well as you do. But she took every opportunity she could to keep us apart, and whenever I went into the room where Flora was spinning, or ironing, she would either follow and take a chair, and sit me out, or send me away of an errand, or tell me to go and talk to father, who was all alone in the parlour, and seemed kinder dull. I never saw a person take such ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... watching his illness with a curious mixture of fierce resentment and proprietorial pride. He spent a good deal of his time trying to think of ways in which he could circumvent the choking sensation that often came to him. Marcella brought some comfort by placing the kitchen ironing board across the bed, resting on the backs of two chairs so that he could lean forward on it. Sometimes he slept so, his grey head jerking forward ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... as a goddess. Florrie, moving backwards, had now got nearly to the scullery door with her wringing and splashing and wiping; and she had dirtied even her face. As Hilda absently looked at her, she thought somehow of Mr. Cannon's white wristbands. She saw the washing and the ironing of those wristbands, and a slatternly woman or two sighing and grumbling amid wreaths of steam, and a background of cinders and suds and sloppiness.... All that, so that the grand creature might have a rim of pure white to his coat-sleeves ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... putting dresses on cheap dolls. When a tall girl came by with a pail of water and entered a nearby apartment, Gervaise saw a tumbled bed on which a man was sprawled, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. As the door closed behind her, Gervaise saw the hand-written card: "Mademoiselle Clemence, ironing." ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... train under a table; that was a roundhouse, Maurice told Jacky. ("Why don't they have a square house?" Jacky said); and beneath the lounge—which was a tunnel, the bigger boy announced ("What is a tunnel?" said Jacky)—and over Lily's ironing board stretched between two stools; "That's a trestle." ("What grows trestles?" Jacky demanded.) Exercise, and a bombardment of questions, brought the perspiration out on Maurice's forehead. He took off his coat, and arranged the ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... that Lizzie had faithfully carried out her part of the bargain. The three babies were done up in bright-coloured calico dresses; she had spent the morning in washing and ironing these garments—also her own dress, which was half-red and half-green, and of generous, almost crinoline proportions. Lizzie herself was built on that scale, with broad hips and bosom, big brown eyes and heavy dark hair. ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... while. But he was gloomy and preoccupied, and before long she retired to the regions of the laundry, which was installed in a long low building that ran out into the vegetable garden at the back of the house. Monday was generally the day for ironing the heavy linen of the convent, which was taken up on Tuesdays in the huge baskets carried by four women, slung to a pole which rested on their shoulders in the old primitive fashion, just as litters are still carried in many parts ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... is very beneficial. This is done very gently with the thumb and forefinger only—precisely the motion used in kneading bread. The smoothing manipulation for the wrinkles is probably better explained as an "ironing out" motion. All lines can stand these two movements. Whenever the skin seems particularly dull of color and generally lifeless, then the patting comes in excellent play. This is merely a gentle tattoo over the entire ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... her present position far above it. The question of working in the laundry did not even occur to Maslova now. She looked with compassion on the life of drudgery led by these pale, emaciated washerwomen, some of whom showed symptoms of consumption, washing and ironing in a stifling, steam-laden atmosphere with the windows open summer and winter, and she was horrified at the thought that she, too, might be ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... control. And then you will escape many a rent and many a rag; many a seam and many a patch; many a soil and many a stain. And then also you will be found walking abroad in comeliness and at liberty, while others, less careful, are at home mending and washing and ironing because they went without a girdle when you girt up your garments well off the ground. Wherefore always gird well up ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... grease on its cover, it can be removed by scraping French chalk or magnesia over the place, and ironing with a warm (not hot) iron. A simpler method is to apply benzine to the grease spots, (which dissolves the fatty material) and then dry the spot quickly with a fine cloth. This operation may be repeated, if ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... a handkerchief, as yet folded and fresh from its ironing, and handed it to Georgiana. "Will you tear that into strips an inch wide, please, while I take a look back here for a bit of wood?" and he disappeared down the road, while Georgiana with the aid of her strong white teeth tore the fine ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... to enable the poor to avoid one of thee worst miseries of their lot, and which yet promises to pay. Joined with this is an establishment for washing clothes, where the poor can go and hire, for almost nothing, good tubs, water ready heated, the use of an apparatus for rinsing, drying, and ironing, all so admirably arranged that a poor woman can in three hours get through an amount of washing and ironing that would, under ordinary circumstances, occupy three or four days. Especially the drying closets ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... perfect order, and the air of thoughtful repose that breathed over it. She lived there in perfect independence, doing, as it was her delight to do, every office of life for herself. She was her own cook, her own parlor and chamber maid, her own laundress; and very faultless the cooking, washing, ironing, and care of her premises were. A slice of Aunt Esther's gingerbread, one of Aunt Esther's cookies, had, we all believed, certain magical properties such as belonged to no other mortal mixture. Even a handful of walnuts ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... interview the milk dealer; Jane was cold and went into the cottage to warm herself. "It is well I'm at ironing today," said Mrs. Brent, "for so I hev a good fire. Come your ways in, ma'am, and sit on the hearth. Let me make you ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... taking care, at the same time, of our abdominal muscles, lest the exertion of laughter should occasion one of the muscular spasms so much dreaded by our author. The plan is divided into four compartments; tickling, pickling, ironing, and throwing up the bowels. The tickling is performed by gentle taps and slight pushes in the pit of the stomach. (Who could bear it? It would throw nine patients out of ten into convulsions!) The pickling, by wrapping up the patient from the chest ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... been living at is Paris," said Humphrey, "and they tell me 'tis where the king's head was cut off years ago. My poor mother used to tell me about that business. 'Hummy,' she used to say, 'I was a young maid then, and as I was at home ironing mother's caps one afternoon the parson came in and said, "They've cut the king's head off, Jane; and what ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... of the third week of Louis' stay was made memorable by one of her demonstrations. It was Wednesday evening, the last of our ironing was finished, and mother and I were folding the clothes as we took them down from the old-fashioned horse, when we heard her sweet voice claiming us for ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... work tolerable in other households were not to be found in the cottage. Everything had to be done practically in one room—which was sometimes a sleeping-room too, or say in one room and a wash-house. The preparation and serving of meals, the airing of clothes and the ironing of them, the washing of the children, the mending and making—how could a woman do any of it with comfort in the cramped apartment, into which, moreover, a tired and dirty man came home in the evening to eat and wash and rest, or if not to rest, then to potter in and out from garden or pig-stye, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... down the short flight of steps and into the wide street, I tucked Samuel under my arm, and lugged him, not without inward misgivings, into the kitchen, where my mother stood at the ironing-board, with one foot on ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s and probably much earlier. The word 'automagic' occurred in advertising (for a shirt-ironing gadget) as far ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... kitchen this morning to get warm," Jill observed later in the evening, "I found Bridget ironing; the stove was red-hot, the bath boiler was bubbling and shaking with the imprisoned steam, and the outside door was wide open. It struck me that there was heat enough going out of doors, not to mention the superheated air of the kitchen itself, ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... through Norfolk, and one afternoon, to escape a coming thunderstorm, I knocked at the door of a lonely cottage on the outskirts of a common. The woman, a kindly bustling person, asked me in; and hoping I would excuse her, as she was busy ironing, returned to her work in another room. I thought myself alone, and was standing at the window watching the pouring rain. After a while, without knowing why, I turned. And then I saw a child seated on a high chair behind a table in a dark corner of the room. ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... ironing early in the morning, for she liked to hurry it over before the heat of the day. Her cabin doors were open, and her flowers, which had been watered by a slight rain that fell about daybreak, looked fresh and beautiful. Her house could be hardly called a cabin, for it was very much ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... next morning, Nicholas repaired to the lodgings of Miss Snevellicci, which were in a place called Lombard Street, at the house of a tailor. A strong smell of ironing pervaded the little passage; and the tailor's daughter, who opened the door, appeared in that flutter of spirits which is so often attendant upon the periodical getting up ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... kitchen, and scullery, with three bedrooms and a bathroom. The married soldiers have a living-room, scullery, and one, two, or three bedrooms according to the size of their families. A laundry is provided adjacent to the married quarters, equipped with washing-troughs, wringer, drying-closet, and ironing-room; and the women are encouraged to use this in preference to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... Messer Neri dismissed the rest of the company to their various avocations; the ladies silently retired to superintend the ironing and mending of the house linen, and Domenico was escorted by his host to see the newly arrived piece of statuary. It had been placed already in the banker's closet, where he could feast his eyes on its ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... for two weeks, she sent for her trunk. I discovered that she was a fine laundress, carefully washing and ironing the things which were too fine to go into the regular wash; a most excellent cook, her kitchen and pantry were at all times immaculate; she had no followers, and few friends; meals were ready on the stroke of the hour, and she had the ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... a good girl, Patty," returned her mother, winking away the moisture in her eyes, as she went on with her ironing. "Amabel, don't you be trampling on Patty's best dress, there's a good little lass. Well, as I was saying, Patty, only the children do interrupt so. There, Joe and Ben, just take your sugar-sticks and be off ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... long evenings when, already tired from her work in the factory, she had stood sorting, sprinkling, folding, ironing, the two women got to a state where they scarcely dared to look at each other: just a passing glance, a hardish stare, but no ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... school for 500 boys, where it runs a great laundry and bathing establishment. A thousand men a day come in for bath, disinfection, and clean clothes; 100 French women do the laundry work in huge tubs, and there are big disinfectors and drying and ironing rooms. The men of the F.A. do the sorting and all the work except the washing and ironing. And the beautifully-cared-for English cart-horses that belong to the F.A., and the waggons and the motor ambulances and the equipment, are all kept ready to ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... menage,—a parlour-maid she was called. This was too much. It was rank injustice. General housework girls began to complain of having too much work to do,—getting up at five in the morning, cooking for half a dozen "hands," doing all the washing and ironing, milking, sweeping and so on, and not getting to bed till nine or ten o'clock at night,—to say nothing of family dinners on Sunday and the preacher in every now and then, and all that. Moreover, Mrs. Windom ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... ran across to Yensens to startle Lena with stories of ten cent theaters, firemen's dances, and all the other esthetic delights of metropolitan life. In a few weeks Lena's head was completely turned, and she gave her father no rest until he let her go to town to seek her fortune at the ironing board. From the time she came home on her first visit she began to treat Canute with contempt. She had bought a plush cloak and kid gloves, had her clothes made by the dress-maker, and assumed airs and graces that made the other women of the neighborhood ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... ironing a shirt for him, and told her the news. She received them quietly. So many changes had got both her and Richard into a sober way of expecting. They went to Mr. Bell, and Richard begged him to do what he judged necessary. Mr. Bell at once communicated ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... is mistaken about women not wanting to sit in Parliament. He perhaps does not know what it feels like to stand over a wash-tub—or an ironing board—or cook over a hot stove. Women who have been doing these things long would be glad ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... same lot of persecution which their newly arrived countrymen had organized and were carrying out against the Trinidadians proper. It happened that, on the occasion to which we wish particularly [88] to refer, the woman in question was at home, engaged in her usual occupation of ironing for her honest livelihood. Suddenly she heard a heavy blow in the street before her door, and almost simultaneously a loud scream, which, on looking hastily out, she perceived to be the cry of a boy of some ten or twelve years of age, who had been violently struck with the fist by another youth ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... in an undertone of amiable chiding; and the buggy gave a jerk of thankful relief as its principal burden left it for the sidewalk, diffusing the sweet smell of the ironing-table. ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... put in order, the hearth swept, the irons at the fire, and Miss Fortune just pinning her ironing blanket on the table. "Well, what's the matter?" she said, when she saw Ellen's face; but as her glance reached the floor, her brow darkened. "Mercy on me!" she exclaimed, with slow emphasis, "what on earth have you been about? where have ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... that to me, not to Margery's mother. I don't know—mebbe she would of put her away, she was that frightened little Margery would get Junior killed off in some horrible manner, like the time she got him to see how high he dast jump out of the apple tree from, or like the time she told him, one ironing day, that if he drank a whole bowlful of starch it would make him have whiskers like his pa in fifteen minutes. Things like that—not fatal, ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... were renewed, loud, immediate, shocking palpably on her ear. She knocked, but knew that the ringing clamor of the axe drowned out the sound. Through the screen-door she saw old Mrs. Powers, standing by the table, ironing, and stepped in. The three children were in the pantry, beyond, Ralph spreading some bread and butter for his little brother and sister. Ralph was always good to the younger children, although he was so queer and un-childlike! ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Aileen is ironing in the large front-kitchen, smoothing out, as she calls it, one of Honor's pretty white dresses. It is a labor of love with the old woman, and every week she comes up from her little cottage ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... they were talking over old times together in the little sitting-room over the shop. CYRIL MUSH was delighted. "You can't charge an old friend anything for just ironing his hat," he said, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... anxious to see them all come in, one after another (though I knew the greater part of them already, to speak to, and they me), that I got leave of absence on purpose, and established myself in a corner, near the petition. It was stretched out, I recollect, on a great ironing-board, under the window, which in another part of the room made a bedstead at night. The internal regulations of the place, for cleanliness and order, and for the government of a common room in the ale-house, where hot water and some means of cooking, and a good fire, were provided for all who ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... establishment quite indifferent to all questions of finance. We heard nothing in those days of greenbacks, silver coinage, or a gold basis. Laden with vegetables, butter, eggs, and a magnificent turkey, Peter and his followers returned to the kitchen. There, seated on a big ironing table, we watched the dressing and roasting of the bird in a tin oven in front of the fire. Jacob peeled the vegetables, we all sang, and Peter told us marvelous stories. For tea he made flapjacks, baked in a pan with a long handle, which he turned by throwing ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... earned her living by ironing. She made on an average 10s per week. I suggested to her the advisability of applying for an old age pension and proceeded to fill in her papers. When she discovered that she was two months under the age of 65 she ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... proper cupboards for their clothes; what cupboards there were either would not close at all, or burst open whenever anyone passed by them. There were no pots and pans; there was no copper in the washhouse, nor even an ironing-board in the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... The daughter was busy at some ironing in the outer room; she was a dull, lack-lustre creature, and though she comprehended the gifts that had been brought her, seemed hardly to have life enough to thank the donor. That wasn't quite like a fairy tale, Daisy ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner |
