"Oilcloth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the extreme end of the long, oilcloth-covered table, on which a straggling army of salt and pepper shakers, catsup bottles, and divers commercial condiments seemed to pause in a discouraged march. A plague of flies was on everything, and the food was a threat to the hardiest appetite. One man summed ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... long and deep and wide, And the poker hung above it and the shovel stood beside, And the big, black cookstove, grinnin' through its grate from ear to ear, Seemed to look as if it loved it like a brother, pretty near. Flowered oilcloth tacked around it kept its cracks and knot-holes hid, And a pair of leather hinges fastened on the heavy lid, And it hadn't any bottom—or, at least, it seemed that way When you hurried in to fill it, so's ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... tight, so's you couldn't tell whether he had a vest on or not—though 'twas a safe bet he hadn't—and it and his pants was made of the loudest kind of black-and-white checks. No nice quiet pepper-and-salt, you understand, but the checkerboard kind, the oilcloth kind, the kind that looks like the marble floor in the Boston post-office. They was pretty tolerable seedy, and so was his hat. Oh, he was a last year's bird's nest NOW, but when them clothes was fresh—whew! the northern lights and a ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... moment of silence in the room. As all refused to have any more dessert, Mme. Carhaix took up the tablecloth and spread an oilcloth in ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... Jenkins," the gloomy voice began, "only I don't want you should step off that oilcloth. I ain't going to get that carpet all tracked up. You go right on into the front room"—a gaunt arm pushed her toward a darker space—"and I'll open up there ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... think it is a moose. I am not at all sure, although I have been told more than once. Over another door is a large clock, such a one as one finds in a broker's office with us. The floor is covered with what is called oilcloth—I wonder why: it certainly is not the least like cloth—very new and excessively shiny. It has a conventional pattern in black and white, and when the sun shines on it, it quite dazzles ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... helmets, if you may call them so, on their heads. At his side each wore a kind of leather case attached to a wide bronze belt. In these cases they carried something like a revolver, and each had, besides, a little book with black oilcloth covers. ...
— From Plotzk to Boston • Mary Antin
... nipped the pliers upon the oilcloth table cover. He looked at the airplane picture, he looked at ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... sure the little house had almost driven her back from its threshold. She filled the small shabby hall, she fell over the brushes left by the general servant who had been scrubbing the oilcloth, not expecting her ladyship; she sat uncomfortably on the green rep chairs of the drawing-room staring at a Berlin-wool banner-screen which represented a poodle with beads for his eyes, at the silver shavings in the grate, and the school drawings, finished ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... opened the outside door, and presently Joe came in with a bucket of salt fish in one hand and a sack of flour on his shoulder. While he took the fish down to the cellar for her, another figure appeared in the doorway; a young boy, short, stooped, with a flat cap on his head and a great oilcloth valise, such as pedlars carry, strapped to his back. He had fallen asleep in the wagon, and on waking and finding his brother gone, he had supposed they were at home and scrambled for his pack. He stood in the doorway, blinking his eyes at the light, looking ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... about snow; that's getting to be a painful subject on this ranch," Rosemary pleaded, while she placed twelve pairs of steel knives and forks on the long, white-oilcloth-covered table. ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... top of her voice, while she sluiced fresh deluges of water from her shuck brush. I was too disgusted for words, but resolved that this should not occur again. As soon as I could communicate with the outside world I had the hall floors covered with oilcloth (then the fashionable covering). Also, Minerva was displaced, and Phyllis reigned in her stead, but Minerva, nevertheless, always indulged in the belief that she was indispensable ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... a sudden, from out the spacious halls of which they had caught a glimpse on arriving, brisk steps began to come towards them over the oilcloth—at first as a mere tapping in the distance, then rapidly gaining in weight and decision. Laura's palpitations reached their extreme limit—another second and they might have burst her chest. Cousin Grace ceased to giggle; the door opened with a peculiar flourish; ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... voyage at length is o'er And she has crossed the oilcloth floor And grounded on the woolly mat, The wooded slopes of Ararat. Upon this lately flooded land It's very difficult to stand The animals in double row, When some have lost a leg or so; A book is best to carry those Who still feel sea-sick in their toes. For NOAH and his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various
... when Florent arrived the Mehudins were just finishing their dinner. Muche sprang to his neck, and for a moment the young man remained seated with the lad chattering between his legs. Then, when the oilcloth cover had been wiped, the lesson began on a corner of the table. The beautiful Norman gave Florent a cordial welcome. She generally began to knit or mend some linen, and would draw her chair up to the table and work by the light of the same lamp as the others; and she frequently put down her needle ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... carpenter's work; a painter gave her a brush and sufficient wood-stain to freshen up all the woodwork of the store. Miss 'Rill came and helped her clean the place and kalsomine the walls and ceiling. A storekeeper gave her enough enameled oilcloth to cover neatly the long table. Hopewell Drugg furnished bracket lamps, and gave her the benefit of the wholesale discount on a hanging lamp and ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... restaurant and hotel trade. Men coming up in motors or on horseback, dusty and tired, had eaten and drunk at his squalid tables, swearing at the food but unable to get anything better. And now here was a woman who covered her counters with snowy oilcloth—who had shining urns of coffees, delectable pots of baked beans, who put up in neat boxes lunches that made men rush back for more and more and more—and whose sandwiches were ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... the continuous tramp of the promenaders. Rows of people, moreover, were waiting at each cantine, so that each time a party rose from table fresh customers took possession of the benches ranged beside the oilcloth-covered planks, which were so narrow that there was scarcely room for two bowls of soup to be placed side by side. And one and all made haste, and devoured with the ravenous hunger born of their fatigue, that insatiable appetite which so often follows upon great moral shocks. In fact, when the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... it at all. Why, if you'd lived in an abandoned sheep camp for months and prepared your own meals on a broken stove, and eaten them all alone on a bumpy table covered with a piece of oilcloth, and taken your bath in an icy cold creek and then only on the darkest nights for fear someone were watching, and read a few magazines over and over 'til you knew even the advertisements by heart—then suddenly found yourself seated in a room like this, with real china and silver, ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... he had for sale, knives, forks—one set of knives and forks selling for $13, plates, bowls, pitchers, mugs, teacups, teapots, decanters, almanacs, brooms, oilcloth, glass and putty, inkstands, bedsteads, spoons in sets, sugar-bowls, ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... glancing at these we might consider what is the best covering for the floor. There is no doubt that deal boards well scrubbed look nicer than anything else, but to keep them spotless involves a lot of labour, and as this is not always to be had, perhaps the wisest plan is to cover it with oilcloth or linoleum; a good medium quality can be bought for 3s. 3d. a square yard, and if properly laid will last for years. By the way, it should not be washed, but only rubbed with a damp cloth first and then with a piece of flannel dipped in oil soda and scrubbing will ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... name implied, it served as sleeping quarters for the men. It was a long one-story building covering a large area of ground. All one end of it was partitioned off into bunks to the number of thirty or more. The other half was used as a dining and living room. A long table, spread with oilcloth, extended down the center, with a row of chairs on either side. The walls were decorated with gaudy lithographs, circus posters and colored sheets taken from the Sunday papers that occasionally drifted out that way. On a side table were a number of well-thumbed ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... boys still more when he got to the back passage leading to the pantry, where there was no carpet at all, only oilcloth. He pattered along as fast as he could; there was no sound to be heard but the ticking of the clock, and Baby wondered that he had never noticed before what a loud ticking clock it was; it did not come into his head that it was very late for none of the servants to be down, for such ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... her with oil-cloth—best American oilcloth, and put the sheet over that, and four jars of disinfectant, on account of the smell—as they did at Moscow—you remember? And she's lying so still; you shall see, in the morning, when it's light. What! can't you get up?" asked Rogojin, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... closed the door, and Douglas Stone walked down the narrow passage, glancing about him in some surprise as he did so. There was no oilcloth, no mat, no hat-rack. Deep grey dust and heavy festoons of cobwebs met his eyes everywhere. Following the old woman up the winding stair, his firm footfall echoed harshly through the silent house. There ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a much-prized possession, for no other like it had ever been known in the village. The floor was covered with oilcloth, and a sheepskin rug lay upon the hearthstone, while white starched curtains draped the window. The getting of the waxcloth had been a wonderful event, and dozens of women had come from all over the village to stand in gaping admiration of its beauty. ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... when we were going into camp we were overtaken by a man trundling a push-cart. This vehicle had between its wheels a box containing the man's supplies of food and camp articles, with the blankets, which were in a roll, placed on top; all strapped down under an oilcloth cover. ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... from Sylvester M. Schessler, Genoa, Ohio. To keep scionwood I place sticks, such as elder, on a cement floor, lay the scions crosswise on these, cover them with sawdust and throw an oilcloth over this. In May I graft by the slotbark method nailing the scion and tying with string or rubber bands and wax with Acme Grafting Compound put on cold. I cover with a two pound paper sack and later stake up the new growth. I ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... the rock out on the oilcloth behind the sugar can and directly under the little square window through which the sun was pouring a lavish yellow flood of light before it dropped behind the peak. Bud set the bacon back where it would not burn, and bent over the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... was furnished almost entirely with blue-flowered oilcloth; the tables were covered with it, the floor was covered with it, the shelves were draped in it. Cold struck up through the shining, clammy surface underfoot so that while Sheila's face burned from the heat of the ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... "against the rain which descends from the skies, against the mud which oozes from the ground, against the cold, an emanation from the infinite which is all-pervading." The soldiers uncouthly rigged out in skins, rolls of blanket, ... cardigans, and more cardigans, squares of oilcloth, fur caps, ... hoods of tarpaulin, rubber, weatherproof cloth ... look like cave men, gorillas, troglodytes. One of them, while digging, has turned up an axe made by quaternary man, a piece of pointed stone with a bone handle, and he is using ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... there," suggested Mickey, "after you finish with that strip of brown oilcloth and the pans and skillets adorning it, cotton up to that cook stove, and imagine standing over it while it is roaring, to get three meals a day, and all the baking, fruit canning, boiling clothes, and such, and tell me if Lily's bed was in so ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... on a small shelf edged in scalloped white oilcloth ticked with spick-and-span precision into a kitchen so correspondingly spick and span that even its silence smelled scoured, rows of tins shining into it. A dun-colored kind of dusk, soot floating in it, began to filter down the ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... simple and orderly as Sara Lee's days in it. Time was to come when Sara Lee, having left it, ached for it with every fiber of her body and her soul—for its bright curtains and fresh paint, its regularity, its shining brasses and growing plants, its very kitchen pans and green-and-white oilcloth. She was to ache, too, for her friends—their small engrossing cares, their kindly ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... should run against a snag, I lay down sullenly in the rain on the wet soaking grass of our raft, and tried to forget my misery in sleep. On account of the contrary wind we could not put up our tent, and were obliged to cover ourselves as best we could with oilcloth blankets and shiver away the ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... paint, requiring three coats, or painted burlap. Or our thoughts may turn with longing to a white-tiled kitchen, with its air of spotless purity, but, too often, "beyond the reach of you and me." Why not substitute for it the white marbled oilcloth which produces much the same effect, and can be smoothly fitted if a little glue is added to the paste with which it is put on? A combination of white woodwork with blue walls and ceiling is charming, particularly where the blue-enameled porcelain-lined cooking utensils are used, ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... single roysterer, and opposite stood the ancient town house, with arches where the country folk came at the spring and autumn hiring fairs. Dickson rang the antiquated bell, and was presently admitted to a dark hall floored with oilcloth, where a single gas-jet showed that on one side was the business office and on the other the living-rooms. Mr. Loudon was at supper, he was told, and he sent in his card. Almost at once the door at the end on the left side was flung open and a large figure appeared flourishing a napkin. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... loudly, throwing changing shadows upon the ceiling, and a deep, glowing light upon the red panels of the wardrobe. So the room fixed itself for ever on their minds. They noted the crude colour of the Brussels carpet, and even the oilcloth around the toilette-table was remembered. They saw that the round table was covered with a red tablecloth, and that writing materials were there, a pair of stays, a pair of tan gloves, and some withering flowers. They saw the ball-dress that ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... on Alexey Alexandrovitch. He got up and submissively followed her to the schoolroom. They sat down to a table covered with an oilcloth ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... The floor oilcloth must be spread at the side of the bed which is made up for the confinement, and should extend slightly under ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... Lannigan knew what she had told him for he immediately jerked his hands off the oilcloth, and hid them under ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... opposite end of the room from the bed was a table covered with white oilcloth; and on the wall behind, the cupboard which held his dishes, and his stock of provisions. It was a pleasant spot and well ordered, for he never liked to leave his quarters in disarray lest some one might enter during his absence, or come back with him. Besides, it was pleasanter so to return ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... perfectly still in the centre of the floor and looked about her. There was a square of oilcloth in front of each article of furniture and a drawn-in rug beside the single four poster, which was covered with ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that something bitter had happened to him, and that he was trying to talk down the recollection. She went up to bed early, leaving him seated in moody thought, his elbows propped on the worn oilcloth of the supper table. On the way up she had extracted from his overcoat pocket the key of the cupboard where the bottle of ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... I left the room," said he; "the Mater was very near rolling on the oilcloth, and the Governor dancing and foaming from his mouth. What an awfully old ass you have been, JAB, to go and blurt out everything in print—about your breach of promise case, and getting to know us, and—worst of all—being merely a bogey ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... by the fire in a cavernous hearth where the cooking was still going forward with skillet and crane. The food, coarse and greasy, but not unwholesome, was set on a long table covered with oilcloth. The roughly clad men sat down with a scraping of chair legs, and attacked their provender in ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... a small space, covered with oilcloth and raised by a step from the bend made by the staircase leading to the first story. On the left-hand side was a window looking on a narrow passage separating the Mackwayte house from its neighbors and leading to the back-door. By the window stood a small wicker-work table with ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... marked this man as Drumm from the beginning. He was a florid, heavy man, his long mustache strangely white against the inflamed redness of his face. He carried a large roll covered with black oilcloth ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... to the local hostelry for a glass of tea. Also, parlours of this kind invariably contain smutty ceilings, an equally smutty chandelier, a number of pendent shades which jump and rattle whenever the waiter scurries across the shabby oilcloth with a trayful of glasses (the glasses looking like a flock of birds roosting by the seashore), and a selection of oil paintings. In short, there are certain objects which one sees in every inn. In the present case the only outstanding feature ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and on the verge of mutiny; but Mackenzie was undaunted and determined to go forward. He spread the provisions out to dry and set his crew to work patching up the stern of the broken canoe with resin and oilcloth and new cedar lining. That night the mountain Indian who had acted as guide across the portage gave Mackenzie the slip and escaped in the {81} woods. For several days after this most of the party ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... he suddenly realized just what it meant. When called within, it was dirt and flies, flies and dirt, everywhere. He sat in a chair with a smooth-worn cane bottom so low that his chin was just above the table. The table-cover was of greasy oilcloth. His tumbler was cloudy, unclean, and the milk was thin and sour. Thick slices of fat bacon swam in a dish of grease, blood was perceptible in the joints of the freshly killed, half-cooked chicken, and the ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... do—in a way.... But fancy a young girl like Karen being in love with him!... Well, anyway, we all went out to the east porch, which is kept in readiness for bridge all summer. Iron bridge tables, covered with oilcloth, and with oilcloth pouches for the cards and score pads, so there's never any bother about scurrying in with things on account of rain. It's a roofed, stone-floored porch, right outside the living-room, and under it are the garages, so it's ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... with a pretty free use of my toe I kept sending the little grunters squeaking away. After tea I felt a little curious to know what was in the big old Gipsy dame's basket, for I had an idea one or two hair-brushes, combs, laces, and other small trifles which lay on the top of a small piece of oilcloth covering the inside of the basket had, by their greasy appearance, done duty for many a long day. I told the old Gipsy dame that I was going home the next day, and should like to take a little thing or two for my little ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... bread in an oilcloth (and every Morgan's man had one soon after they were issued to the Federals); another worked up corn-meal into dough in the scooped-out half of a pumpkin; one baked bread on a flat rock, another on a board, while ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... seemed served up on her plate, and with smoke of the boiled beef there rose from her secret soul whiffs of sickliness. Charles was a slow eater; she played with a few nuts, or, leaning on her elbow, amused herself with drawing lines along the oilcloth table cover with the point of ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... they shed their equipment and sat down to inspect Scotty's find. The covering proved to be layer after layer of oilcloth, wrapped around the object. The outer layers had deteriorated somewhat, but the inner ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... a long table covered with white oilcloth and a line of bunks built in two tiers against the wall opposite the door. A big stove stood at one end, and there were pegs for saddles, bridles and ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... and came without a stop To Mr. Wren the chemist's shop, And stood awhile outside to see The tall, big-bellied bottles three— Red, blue, and emerald, richly bright Each with its burning core of light. The bell chimed as she pushed the door. Spotless the oilcloth on the floor, Limpid as water each glass case, Each thing precisely in its place. Rows of small drawers, black-lettered each With curious words of foreign speech, Ranked high above the other ware. The old strange fragrance filled the air, A fragrance like the garden ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... also numerous gentlemen of a Comanche-like physiognomy, who wore ordinary dress, but were distinguished by flower wreaths in lieu of hat bands. Here and there Chinese women loafed about, wearing trousers of a kind of black oilcloth, and leading Chinese babies dressed in more colors than Joseph's coat—grass-green, black, azure, and rose. In the background several army wagons were filled with officers in uniform ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... word he burst into a bitter laugh, and drew Mrs. Greyne, now gasping for breath, through an open doorway into a little hall of imitation marble, with fluted pillars adorned with oilcloth, and walls hung with imported oleographs. From a chamber on the right, near a winding staircase covered with blue-and-white tiles, came the sound of laughter, of song, and of a hideous music conveyed to the astonied ear by ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... whom they saw climbing over the rocks. He wore his oilcloth blouse and his gay helmet, and soon they could hear his rude voice singing and see ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... nodded but made no remark by way of comment. Some time later he sat up at the oilcloth-covered table talking quietly with Frank McLowery. And Brenckenridge saw McLowery scowling. Then he felt reasonably sure who had stolen that blooded animal and who was going to bring it back to Tombstone ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... house it was not much gayer. The front hall, with its steep, narrow stairway, and floor-covering of highly ornate landscape oilcloth, was in a perpetual twilight. An occasional glint from white woodwork, or the gold molding of a picture, strove in vain to dispel the gloom. The parlor, at the right of the hall, was sepulchral with its window cracks stuffed ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... the fact that he can regulate the temperature of his shop and thus prevent drafts from chilling the dough. This box is just an ordinary cracker box with the lid hinged on it. It is then lined with thick asbestos paper on the inside and then covered with oilcloth on the outside. The bowl with the dough is then placed in the box to retain its temperature and to be free from drafts while it rises. In cold weather this box can be heated by placing a warm iron in it when starting to mix the dough, and then ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... asks leave to go to see his little kingdom. He must leave Dauger, but has forbidden even his lieutenant to speak to that prisoner. This was an increase of precaution since 1682. He wishes to take the captive to the Isles, but how? A sedan chair covered over with oilcloth seems best. A litter might break down, litters often did, and some one might then ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... Caledonia, from Qu'Appelle . . . they rally their doughtiest fighters under Cuthbert Grant, the {392} half-breed Plain Ranger. From Montreal and Fort William come spurring the leading partners, with one hundred and seventy French-Canadian bullies, and a brass cannon concealed under oilcloth in a long boat. The object of the Plain Rangers is to meet the up-coming partners with supplies for the year; but is that any reason for the riders who are striking eastward from Assiniboine to Red River, decking themselves out in war paint and ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Shin passed on. He went from Paradise Street to a small burrow near the Colonnade, and turned into a mean house where the paper lantern still burned in token that the owners were awake. It was quite clean inside, and divided into large cubicles. In each cubicle was a table, covered with oilcloth, at the head of which was placed a red lacquer pillow and a little glass lamp that gave the only light needed in the long, low room. On the tables lay Burmen and Chinamen, some rigid in drugged sleep, and some smoking ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... when it was held out for her approval two days before, then had suddenly risen, and rushed two steps at a time upstairs to the topmost landing, a wide, scantily furnished space which served for a playground on wet afternoons. An oilcloth covered the floor, a table stood in a corner, and before each of the six doors was an aged wool rug, maroon as to colouring, with piebald patches here and there where the skin of the lining showed through the scanty tufts. Peggy gave a whoop of triumph, tucked ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... his wife, put her head out, too; and when she saw that there was no one in the nursery, she ventured out on the oilcloth under ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... that of the small, one room dwelling place of Lizzie Davis, aged colored woman of Marion, S. C. A disorderly, ill-lighted, crudely furnished room, saturated with the odor of food. Behind the front door stands a gayly colored iron bed, over which is thrown a piece of oilcloth to keep the rain from leaking on it. In the center of the room are several little quaint home-made stools and two broken rockers, while in one corner sits a roughly finished kitchen table, the dumping place of all small articles. Still in another corner, almost hidden from sight in the darkness, ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... Sir Henry had thrown upon the deck. Gradually it came within reach of his disengaged hand. He seized it, shook it out, and dived eagerly into the breast pocket. There were several small articles which he threw ruthlessly away, and then a square packet, wrapped in oilcloth, which bent to his fingers. Another breaking wave threw him on his back. One arm was still through the chain, the other gripped what some illuminating instinct had already convinced him was the chart! As soon as he had recovered his breath, a grim effort of humour parted his lips. He ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... factories for the manufacture of all sorts of things. If you were to see the acts passed by the legislatures of the states between 1808 and 1812, you would find that very many of them were charters for iron works, paper mills, thread works, factories for making cotton and woolen cloth, oilcloth, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... But, nothing daunted, Mr. Opp donned his bravest attire. Cyclones and tornadoes could not have deterred him from making the most elaborate toilet at his command. To be sure, he turned up the hem of his trousers and tied a piece of oilcloth securely about each leg, and he also spread a handkerchief tenderly over his pink necktie; but these could be easily removed after he heard the ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... happy. Then she went on to tell as she washed the dishes and Nancy and Rosie dried them and Lizbeth packed them off to the cupboard, about the strange man. 'He laid powerful admiration on our little girls.' Levicy was wipin' off the oilcloth on the table with her soapy dish rag. 'He had them line up in a row to see which was tallest, whilst I set him a snack. "Shut your eyes," sez he, "and open your mouth." They did, and bless you, Captain Anderson, what did he do but put a sil'er dollar in their mouth—each one.' By this ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... door indicated opened into a little low, dark room that smelled of all the pies ever baked and several dishes besides. There were several oilcloth-topped tables scattered about, and one or two patrons were eating. As Bob and Betty entered a great gust of laughter came from a corner table where a group ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... caught. But the fish was wet and slippery, and no sooner had Snoop pounced on it with her claws than the fish slid across the deck of the houseboat. Snoop slid after it, just as she often slid across the kitchen oilcloth, when she sprang for a piece of string that Flossie or Freddie would pull along to ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... sentimental weakness. Almost instantly, therefore, that sandwich was but a memory, a fading taste in about twenty beaks and two mouths. But still the window stood open, and the air danced, and the white reflections of the ship-like clouds lay on the oilcloth floor. ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... fast reading, and by skipping many a paragraph which was pure description, the oilcloth table was a lonely island inhabited by no human being, the morris chair was the good ship stranded, with all on board lost except Crusoe and Johnnie, who, while the seas dashed over them, roaring, breathlessly salvaged for their future use (Johnnie's hurt arm was out of its sling all ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... autumn there came a ring at the bell, and I let in a man with a slouch hat pulled over his eyes and the collar of his coat turned up. He was soaking wet, the water oozing from his shoes and slopping the oilcloth in the hall where he stood. I had ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... saw was between the rear door of the office and the long, low boarding-house where the foremen and clerks lived. One corner of the great room upstairs, where a hard bed ran up against the roof, and one place at the long, oilcloth-covered table, he had the privilege to call his own for the modest sum of a gold piece a week. He had every other Sunday to himself by the extreme favor of the "boss," on whose own calendar Sunday never came, and who could not see why it should on ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... A working man, a commonplace enough object, was standing under the corner street lamp, the water running off his hat, his shoulders, his coat tail. His package of dodgers was carefully shielded by an oilcloth from the wet which had full swing at the man. To every passer-by he presented a dodger, accompanying the polite gesture with some phrase which seemed to move the man or woman to take what was offered and to put it away instead ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... her hand from the cold metal, when the shadow of a man crossed the drawing-room window, and his measured step sounded along the oilcloth in the hall. The door was unfastened, and the Mayor himself stood in the opening. The child lifted her eyes, and saw standing before, or rather above her, a tall man with light hair turning grey, and a cast of features remarkable only for an absence of all generous expression. He fixed ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... you set a hot glass upside down on the oilcloth table cover, the oilcloth bulges up into it when the hot air and steam shrink and leave a ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... window, and the tattered and blotched wallpaper was covered by bright-coloured grocers' almanacs. Feminine wrappings hung from pegs upon the door, and the floor was covered with a varied collection of fragments of oilcloth. The Windsor chair he sat in was unstable—which presently afforded material for humour. "Steady, old nag," he said; "whoa, ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... pipes, window ledges, &c., may become very hot, when the slightest friction might cause explosion. It is on this account that this house should be very carefully swept out every day. It is also very desirable that the floor of this house should be covered with oilcloth or linoleum, as being soft, it lessens ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... her kitchen to save the floor, and oilcloth mats to save the oilcloth; yet Jerry's boots had to be taken off in the shed, and he was required to walk through in his stocking feet. She blackened her stove three times a day, washed her dishes in the woodhouse, in order to keep her sink clean, and kept one pair of blinds open ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... shoulders and looked at her with pale, desperate eyes. She clapped her hand across her face and then took it away again, and said softly: "What is it, dear?" But he had sunk into a stupor, and had dropped his protruding gaze on the pattern of the oilcloth on the floor, which he was tracing with the toe of his boot. She could get nothing out of him. He obviously did not want her to stay two or three days with him, as she had proposed to do, but, on the ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... glories of the New Jerusalem. No human being exists without an ambition, and the ambition of Janway's Millers of the high-class was to possess a neat frame-house with clean Nottingham lace curtains at the windows, fresh oilcloth on the floor of the front hall, furniture covered with green or red reps in the parlour, a tapestry Brussels carpet, and a few lithographs upon the walls. It was also the desire of the owners of such possessions that everyone should know that they attended one of ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... had been spread thickly upon the floor at one end. He and his assistants had thus far been able to attend to all the cases with reasonable promptness; he had requested Mme. Delaherche to furnish him with another table, with mattress and oilcloth cover, for the shed where he had established his operating room. The assistant would thrust a napkin saturated with chloroform to the patient's nostrils, the keen knife flashed in the air, there ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... supper they trooped across the road. The kitchen in reality consisted of a mess-room downstairs with a dormitory overhead; the actual kitchen was in a lean-to behind. When the six men had seated themselves at the long trestle covered with oilcloth, the cook entered with a steaming bowl ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... building of the Fort Riley sutler were dry-goods, groceries, hardware, boots and shoes, window-glass, rope and twine, and even candy of a very poor sort. Hanging from the ceiling of this queer warehouse were sides of smoked meat, strings of onions, oilcloth suits, and other things that were designed for the comfort or convenience of the officers and soldiers, and were ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... over a knoll, Zeke halted, and put down from his shoulder the hickory cudgel with its dangling valise of black oilcloth—total of baggage with which he was faring forth into the world. Then, he straightened himself, and looked back over the way ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... are well quit, for once, of restoration. No one cares for this sculpture; and if Florence would only thus put all her old sculpture and painting under her feet, and simply use them for gravestones and oilcloth, she would be more merciful to them than she is now. Here, at least, what little is ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... the silver and the trinkets, and neither of these were in our way. Underneath there was an old boat-cloak, whitened with sea-salt on many a harbor-bar. My mother pulled it up with impatience, and there lay before us, the last things in the chest, a bundle tied up in oilcloth, and looking like papers, and a canvas bag that gave forth, at a touch, the jingle ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... glanced at the mistress's watch, in its pasteboard tower, in Gothic architecture, and insisted on proceeding to business. So they all sat down round a circular table, with a very fine red, blue, and black oilcloth, whose pattern was inseparably connected, in Ethel's mind, with absurdity, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... heels caught back of the top rung. She chopped spinach until her face was scarlet, and her hair hung in limp strands at the back of her neck. She skinned tomatoes. She scoured pans. She wiped up the white oilcloth table-top with a capable and soapy hand. The heat and bustle of the little kitchen seemed to work some miraculous change in her. Her eyes brightened. Her lips smiled. Once, Emma McChesney and Ethel Morrissey exchanged covert looks when they heard her crooning ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... errands to be done downtown. "Goin' right along down on my own account, ma'am," was his invariable excuse. "Might just as well run your errands at the same time." Also, whenever he chopped a supply of kindling wood for his own use he chopped as much more and filled the oilcloth-covered box which stood by the stove in the Armstrong kitchen. He would not come in and sit down, however, in spite of Barbara's and her mother's urgent invitation; he was always too ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... bedroom door in passing. Trina made breakfast—coffee, bacon and eggs, and a roll of Vienna bread from the bakery. The breakfast was eaten in the kitchen, on the round deal table covered with the shiny oilcloth table-spread tacked on. After breakfast the dentist immediately betook himself to his "Parlors" to meet his early morning appointments—those made with the clerks and shop girls who stopped in for half an hour on ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... the side door, dumped out the treasure-box, ran into the house, and quickly returned with a hammer and some tacks, then fell swiftly to ripping the oilcloth that covered the box which stood against the wall to serve as a handy wash-stand for use by dusty travellers before dining. The two boxes were of the same size and shape, and she draped the treasure chest with the cloth, tacked ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... beyond that a huge, white marble, glass-walled natatorium. The swimming pool is fifty feet by one hundred; on three sides is just a narrow shelf-like walkway, but the fourth is wide and is furnished as a room with lounging chairs upholstered in white oilcloth. Opening out of this are perfectly equipped Turkish and Russian baths in charge of the best Swedish masseur and ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... New England speeches had been made at Hartford, Connecticut; and at its close he was escorted to his hotel by a procession of the local Republican club, at the head of which marched a few of its members bearing torches and wearing caps and capes of glazed oilcloth, the primary purpose of which was to shield their clothes from the dripping oil of their torches. Both the simplicity and the efficiency of the uniform caught the popular eye, as did also the name, "Wide-Awakes," applied to them by the "Hartford ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... chairs which dated from the reign of Louis XIII, an enormous bedstead, style Louis XIV, and a very handsome wardrobe, Louis XV. In the middle of these venerable old things a white porcelain stove, and the little toilet-table, covered with a pretty oilcloth, seemed out of place and to mar the dull harmony. Curtained with an old-fashioned rose-coloured chintz, on which were bouquets of heather, so faded that the colour had become a scarcely perceptible pink, the enormous ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... but it's no laughing matter, and for my part— though, of course, gentlemen have a right to do as they like—I think there is nothing like a big, flat, zinc bath painted oak out, and white in, set on a piece of oilcloth in a gentleman's bedroom. Then you've your big sponge, and a can of water. No trouble about ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... the same man led a summer expedition against the Foxes. He kept his armed men lying down in the boats and covered with oilcloth like goods. Hundreds of red-skins {174} were squatting on the beach, awaiting the coming of the flotilla. The canoes ranged up along the shore. Then, at a signal, the coverings were thrown off, and a rain of bullets was poured into the defenceless savages, while a swivel-gun mowed down the victims ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... is raised. A box for this purpose may be made of wood or galvanized iron, and it is usually supported by suitable brackets. Its capacity may be increased by building a shelf in it half way to the top, and provided it is made of wood, it can be more easily cleaned if it is lined with table oilcloth. ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... this board and by the gas-range, seated at a table covered by the oilcloth that simulates the marble of Italy's most famous quarry, sat, undoubtedly, the Baron Ronault de Palliac. A steaming plate of spaghetti a la Italien was before him, to his left a large bowl of salad, to his right a bottle of ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... wide by three hundred long where you could not find solid camping ground the size of your foot. What did we do? That is where the uses of a really expert guide came in; we moored our canoe among the willows, cut willows enough to keep feet from sinking, spread oilcloth and rugs over this, erected the tents over all, tying the guy ropes to the canoe thwarts and willows, as the ground would not hold the ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... Office, post posxta oficejo. Officer (military) oficiro. Officer, non-commissioned suboficiro. Official oficisto. Official oficiala. Officiate agi. Officious agama. Offspring ido, idaro. Often ofte. Oh! ho! Oil oleo. Oilcloth vakstolo. Ointment sxmirajxo. Old (not new) malnova. Old (aged) maljuna. Old, to grow maljunigxi. Old, to make maljunigi. Old age maljuneco. Olden (time) antikva. Oldness malnoveco. Oligarchy oligarkio. Olive olivo. Olive-shaped ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... was sore and wildly impatient. Faith in Frederick's God had been forgotten—no other thought occupied her mind save that they were going to take away her beloved—the only one left to her. She deigned not a glance at Professor Young after the deputy had gone, and measured the oilcloth-covered floor restlessly with the stamp, stamp, stamp ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... after giving a scream; "keep her at the door, Sally! Don't bring her off the oilcloth, ...
— Tom and Maggie Tulliver • Anonymous
... peddler came into the yard. He had an oilcloth pack full of tablecloths, napkins, towels, suspenders, lead pencils, laces, overalls, mirrors, combs—a lot of things. And he threw his pack down and opened it up. Grandpa was carryin' slop to the pigs. It was awful hot; you couldn't hardly breathe—except when you ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... rain. But the prospect was for a steady pour and as we were in a wretched inn and only ninety li from Ichou-fu, we wanted to go on. A present of 600 small cash for each muleteer (twenty cents) overcame all scruples. Just as I had comfortably ensconced myself in my shendza with an oilcloth on top and a rubber blanket in front, I saw a centipede on my leg, but I managed to slay him before he bit me. By nine, the rain ceased and though the clouds still threatened, we had a cool and comfortable ride through hundreds of fields of peanuts, ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... not of the insatiable Dutch type which will not spare the stones of the highway; but within the houses are of almost terrifying cleanliness. The other day I found myself in a kitchen where the stove shone like oxidized silver; the pump and sink were clad in oilcloth as with blue tiles; the walls were papered; the stainless floor was strewn with home-made hooked and braided rugs; and I felt the place so altogether too good for me that I pleaded to stay there for the transaction of my business, lest a sharper sense of my unfitness ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... feeling of never having seen it before. The tall stove, the green and oak ingrain carpet, the green rep chairs, the what-not with its shells, the steel engravings on the walls, seemed absolutely strange. I sat down and counted the diamond-shaped figures on the oilcloth in front of the stove; and after a long time I heard Julie cry, and mother say ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... Denver the other day from the East, on the Julesburg Short line, and told the hotel clerk that he had just returned from Europe, and was on his way across the continent with the intention of publishing a book of international information. He handed an oilcloth grip across the counter, registered in a bold, bad way and with a flourish that scattered the ink all over the clerk's white ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... unwrapped the oilcloth from the object in enfolded. It was a book. It was Jarby's 'Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science, Art, Comprising Useful Information on One Thousand and One Subjects, Including A History of the World, the Lives of all Famous Men, Quotations From the World's Great Authors, ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... an amiable smile. "Come right in an' set down. Come in an' rest ye," he exclaimed, and led the way into his comfortable kitchen. The sunshine poured in at the two further windows, and a cat was curled up sound asleep on the table that stood between them. There was a new-looking light oilcloth of a tiled pattern on the floor, and a crockery teapot, large for a household of only one person, stood on the bright stove. I ventured to say that somebody must be ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... been covered with something smooth, linoleum or oilcloth, and then thoroughly waxed, for after the play was over, the place was ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... cramped little room with a breadth or two of worn oilcloth on the floor. Two or three shelves, set across the dingy window, supported a range of glass jars filled with nutmegs and orris-root. On the tilted flagging, outside, the tops of a row of blue gasoline barrels held each a half-pint of the past night's shower, ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller |
