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More "Scrubbing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what I call a tyrant. I lived with her several months, but she kept me almost half of my time in the woods, running from under the bloody lash. While I was at home she kept me all the time rubbing furniture, washing, scrubbing the floors; and when I was not doing this, she would often seat herself in a large rocking chair, with two pillows about her, and would make me rock her, and keep off the flies. She was too lazy to scratch her own head, and would often ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... at first, for almost all were new to their tasks; the barbers were carrying stretchers when they ought to have been barbering; the clippers were scrubbing instead of doing their proper work; but, nevertheless, it was marvellously rapid. The motor tore back to the station, and by the time it had returned its first load had been washed, shaved, arrayed in clean pyjamas, and either lay in bed in the ward, or were waiting their ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... neglected tatting as well as other forms of fancy-work. At school, to be sure, she had spent a great deal of time in acquiring flower-painting, according to the ingenious method then fashionable, of applying the shapes of leaves and flowers cut out in cardboard, and scrubbing a brush over the surface thus conveniently marked out; but even the spill-cases and hand-screens which were her last half-year's performances in that way were not considered eminently successful, and had long been consigned to the retirement of the best bedroom. Thus there ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... children how happy they were to live in a cottage with the door open all day, and the sweet breeze blowing in, and the cocks and hens strutting about outside, and the pigs grunting in the styes at the end of the garden; to see the mother scrubbing and washing, to know that the father was working in the fields, and to run about and help and play, and be cuffed and kissed, just as it happened. Then they would answer, "But you have the tall lady for your aunt, and the ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... deserved our highest praise. It was honest, humble work. But who would imagine from the pompous bearing assumed by the gentleman that he ever peddled newspapers, or that his mother earned her daily bread by scrubbing on her knees office floors? And how does this compare with the ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... the spirit of Dr. Franklin haunted the Library, reading the books. Once a coloured woman, who, in darkey fashion, was scrubbing the floor after midnight, beheld the form. She was so frightened that she fainted. But stranger still, when the books were removed to the New Library in Locust Street, the ghost went with them, and there it still "spooks" about as of yore to this day, as ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... the scrubbing-brushes, as they were set to work at four bells (six o'clock) next morning, awoke me; and, hastily donning such garments as were indispensable, I went on deck to take a look round. The easterly breeze, though it had proved somewhat fitful, had held with sufficient ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... about Martin, who had written to tell his parents of our meeting in London and to announce his intended visit. It was all very exciting, and now his mother was working morning and night at the old cottage, to prepare for the arrival of her son. Such scrubbing and scouring! Such taking up of carpets and laying them down again, as if the darling old thing were expecting ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... to a scrubbing. Lin had unmercifully bored into his ears with a towel shaped like a gimlet at one corner, assuring his mother he was "dirtier 'an the dirtiest coal digger in town." He was arrayed in a clean gingham suit, topped with an ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... pause, and one or two scratched their heads. "His wife seems pretty sick," Mitchell went on in a reflective tone. "I passed the place this morning and saw him scrubbing out the floor. He's been doing a bit of house-painting for old Heegard to-day. I suppose he learnt it in jail. I saw him at work and touched my ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... four minutes. His coat off, his sleeves rolled up, he was scrubbing his hands in a tin basin in the sink, using the bar of yellow ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... clean water, with ammonia, and with a small scrubbing brush go over the rug or carpet, to remove dust and brighten the colors. Replace furniture, bric-a-brac and draperies and your room will be sweet and clean. With care, once in two or three weeks, will be ...
— Things Mother Used To Make • Lydia Maria Gurney
... announced the stout girl. "I'm going to give away my clothes; that is, the most of them. I found a poor woman the other day who does scrubbing for the college who needs them. I found out where she lives and I'm going to bundle them all together and send them to her. I don't wish her to know where they came from. I'll just ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... beaten copper or brass basins, a dipper and a lot of aromatic twigs bound in small bunches. With these he flails the dead cuticle much to the same effect as our scouring it off with a rough towel. Such is the grandfather of the "Russian Bath" found in some of our own cities. After scrubbing thoroughly, and steaming almost to the point of dissolution on one of the higher platforms, a Russian will dash on cold water from the barrel and dry himself and put on his clothes and feel tip-top. An American would make his will ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... presents a record of the work accomplished. These various committees at times are burdened with the most onerous labours, for upon them falls the duty of verifying all the petty details of management. Every pound of soap, or candles, scrubbing-brushes, and similar domestic items, pass under their inspection, not only the payments for them, but the actual articles, or samples of them, being examined. Tenders for grocery, bread, wines and spirits for cases of illness, meat, coals, and so forth are opened ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... She lay with her eyes wide open, watching a fly on the wall, that was scrubbing his thin wings ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... 'Hard physical work—till you drop—till you're so tired, you must go to sleep—that's the only thing when you're as miserable as poor Nelly. You know it is, Will. Don't you remember that poor Mrs. Henessy whose son died here? Her letters to me afterwards used to be all about scrubbing. If she could scrub from morning till night, she could just get along. She scrubbed herself sane again. The bigger the floor, the better she liked it. When bedtime came, she just slept like a log. And at last she got all right. But it was ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... untidiness," Lalage explained when he made a remark on the subject. "I do everything myself, except the scrubbing; and I wouldn't have a woman in for that if it wasn't for my hands; I want to keep ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... but in vain. Phil gave his face an effectual scrubbing, and did not desist until he thought he had avenged the bad treatment he ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... for the moment, cast the spell of despair on him—and looked out. He seemed to see, not the woods that hemmed in the little Indian village, but his humble home in far away Virginia. Poor and shabby outside, inside, the "living" room was as neat as soap and water and sand and plenty of scrubbing could make it. The meagre furnishings were tidily arranged. He could see, "in his mind's eye," the faces of his mother, and Mam, and Thello; fancied he could hear the whinny with which Nat always greeted his entrance to the stable. ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... scrubbing. "Is't true?" said she; "I wish ye luck. But bide a wee. Noo that the battle is owre an' done, What will ye dae wi' the ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... wood fire was sputtering and cracking cheerily, and the inevitable kettle suspended from a hook half-way up the low chimney. Outside, the dog-kennels had been newly thatched with tohi grass, the garden weeded and freshly dug, the chopping-block and camp-oven as clean as scrubbing could make them. It was too late in the year for fruit, but Salter's currant, raspberry, and gooseberry bushes gave us a good idea of how well he must have fared in the summer. The fowls were just devouring the last of the green-pea shoots, and the potatoes ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... to Dick's ear the sound of a quietly spoken order out on deck, followed by a subdued stir, accompanied by certain sounds which the youngster's experience told him was the prelude to the matutinal rite of scrubbing the decks, succeeded a few minutes later by the gush and splash of water and the sound of scrubbing brushes vigorously applied. Then the cabin door opened, and a steward entered bearing on a tray two cups of steaming coffee and a plate of ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... similar to the convulsion of the day before, shook her from head to foot. But she kept on with her scrubbing. ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... Fyen, and after that I proceeded along the mainland of Sleswick and Holstein. I was much pleased with what I saw of the people of these provinces. Their farmhouses and cottages were wonderfully clean and neat. The women were all engaged in scrubbing and polishing. I believe I saw more brass in the shape of bright door-knockers during my journey than I had seen in all England. Even the brass and iron hoops round the milk pails, by constant scrubbing, looked ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... levelled my glass, and perceived that in very deed it was Mr. and Mrs. Ernescliffe who were hopping over the shingle. Descending, I was swung off the last rock in a huge embrace, and Hector's fiery moustache was scrubbing both my cheeks before my feet touched the ground, and Blanche with both arms round my waist. They were ready to devour us alive in their famine for a Stoneborough face; and as Flora and Mary are keeping home uninhabitable, found themselves ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and I, who have been brought up under the shadow of those funeral urns, and have seen that tidy mother scrubbing the ears of that unwilling boy ever since we were born,—you and I, or thou and I, perhaps I should say, will do a little private packing ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... were as often heard in the Scottish palaces as were sounds of revelry and music. Somewhat surprised at such an alarm in a place so solitary, I hastened to the spot, and found the well meaning traveller scrubbing the floor like a housemaid, while Mrs. Policy, dragging him by the skirts of the coat, in vain endeavoured to divert him from his sacrilegious purpose. It cost me some trouble to explain to the zealous purifier of silk stockings, embroidered waistcoats, broadcloth, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the boys said: "Aw, piffle, cut it out. We might as well be scrubbing the floor as listening to this talk. Come on, fellows." He led them back, one of them protesting that he would never scrub a floor for any man. He went ahead and scrubbed the floor still saying that he wouldn't. That lad was weaker than the leader. He went wherever he was led. The ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... event. The Dazzler was short one in its crew, and he had to do more work than was justly his share. He did not mind the cooking, nor the washing down of the decks and the pumping; but when it came to the paint-scrubbing and dishwashing he rebelled. He felt that he had earned the right to be exempt from such scullion work. That was all the green boys were fit for, while he could make or take in sail, lift anchor, steer, ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... the drudging toil of the day was ended. Lena climbed to her room in the third half-story of the Quarrymen's Hotel. Since daylight she had slaved, doing the work of a full-grown woman, scrubbing the floors, washing the heavy ironstone plates and cups, making the beds, and supplying the insatiate demands for wood and water in that turbulent and ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... for—not bracken-beds In fellside ditches underneath the stars; And sharing potluck by the roadside fire. Well, every man must follow his own bent, Even though some woman's wried to let him do it: So, I must bide within this whitewashed gaol, For ever scrubbing flagstones, and washing dishes, And darning hose, and making meals for men, Half-suffocated by the stink of sheep, Till you find a lass to your mind; and set me free To take the road again—if I'm not too doddery For gallivanting; as most folk are by the time They've done their ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... into the recessed part. There was nothing else for it. He had to sit still on a small folding stool, half smothered by the heavy coats hanging there. We listened to the steward going into the bath-room out of the saloon, filling the water-bottles there, scrubbing the bath, setting things to rights, whisk, bang, clatter—out again into the saloon—turn the key— click. Such was my scheme for keeping my second self invisible. Nothing better could be contrived under the circumstances. And there we sat; I at my writing-desk ready ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... to do any kind of work. I've worked hard for sixteen year: I've been sober and steady and saving. Look what all that work and saving has brought me! This is a nice place for a decent man and his family to live in, ain't it? Them walls ain't clean? No, because scrubbing can't make 'em. The grime's in the plaster: yes, and worse than grime—vermin and disease sech as 'tain't right for me to mention even to ladies like you, but it's right enough for sech as us to live in. Yes, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... really weakened the spinal column. Whatever the cause, the fact remains. It is not the idea of work, of service, but of bending the back to work that is so repugnant; likewise the effect on the hands of hot water and scrubbing. Close observation has convinced me that care of the hands has become an indication of freedom from manual labor quite unthought of fifteen or twenty years ago. The increase of manicuring-rooms, like the increase of restaurants, is a clear sign of the trend of the times. Not only ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... neighbours. There are many such hotels in the vicinity of Euston Station, and this seemed the most wretched of them all, for the windows had not been cleaned for many months, while the steps badly wanted scrubbing. ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... appeared at last, and with her fears quieted, Mrs. Jones pursued the even tenor of her way until everything was done and her little kitchen was as shining as soap and sand and scrubbing brush could make it. Perhaps it was washing the patchwork quilt which Abigail had pieced that brought the deceased so strongly to Mrs. Jones' mind, and made her so curious to see Abigail's successor. Whatever it was, Mrs. Jones was very anxious for ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... was scrupulously clean. The bare boards in the hall seemed worn thin by scrubbing and nowhere were any furniture or ornaments except the hanging scroll. The floors were covered with soft wicker mats and presently they were all seated in a semicircle at one end of the room. The younger members of the party were in a perfect ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... frightened face; and Tommie, a round headed youngster, like a thousand other round headed and freckle-faced boys. Both of them were now sitting very straight in their chairs, staring at the visitor with a certain resentment, he thought. He suspected that they had been included in the general scrubbing. Inasmuch as it had been uncertain just when the visitor would come, they must have been required to do this every night, and he could imagine family disturbances, with arguments possibly not altogether complimentary ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... to work in a kitchen she should respect her work and dignify her position. She may be a "Somebody" washing dishes or scrubbing a floor, if she does not depreciate her work and if she will give it status instead of half doing it and ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... form of exercise was a ride in a bath-chair, just as his favourite diet was bath-chaps and bath-buns. For the rest he found that the ideas of his best pars came to him while he was using a scrubbing-brush which had belonged to Posh, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... tell you. Yes, you will have time enough. The train isn't due till after six, and they'll be a half-hour longer getting home from the station. Sit you down, Goodsoul, just for one little bit of minute. The scrubbing must surely be done ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... white dress and the pink roses, and contrasted them with their own warm but homely garments; they watched the pretty girl going through her part gracefully and easily, and they contrasted her work with theirs. How interesting, how delightful, they thought, to be doing this, instead of scrubbing floors, or ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... not matter that in her unselfish effort to help him she burned up much of her attractiveness over the cooking stove; that she lost more of it at the washtub, in scrubbing and cleaning, and rearing and caring for their children during the slavery of her early married life; it does not matter how much she suffered during those terrible years of poverty and privation. Just as soon as the selfish husband ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... say to you," returned Mr. Fortune, scrubbing furiously at his fingers with a duster, "and I say to you what I seem to be perpetually forced to say to you, that your ideas are becoming more and more repugnant to me. There's not a solitary subject ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... day, as it chanced, her feelings claimed a more violent easement—and got it. She was scrubbing the kitchen floor. Just in the doorway stood the scrubbing-pail, full of dirty suds. On a chair close by stood a dish of eggs. The moose calf was nowhere in sight, and the bar was down. Tired and hot, she got up from her aching knees ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to the old arched entrance of the keep, and pointed upward to a spot above the arch where some one had been scraping and scrubbing away the stains of time. There, clean white now in the midst of rusty stonework, was a carved device—shield-shaped—two ships and two wheat-sheaves; and underneath on a scroll the motto in Latin—Per terram et aquam—By ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... grandmothers and great grandmothers of this generation, at least the country houses, with front door and back door always standing open, winter and summer, and a thorough draught always blowing through—with all the scrubbing, and cleaning, and polishing, and scouring which used to go on, the grandmothers, and still more the great grandmothers, always out of doors and never with a bonnet on except to go to church, these things entirely ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... She was far more active than her husband, who had a very small clerkship in the city; without her aid the children, Peter and Flossy, could scarcely have lived, but by dint of toiling from morning to night, of saving every penny, of turning and re-turning worn-out clothes, and scrubbing and cooking and brushing and cleaning, Mrs Franklin contrived to make two ends meet. Her lodgers said that the rooms they occupied were clean and neat, that their food was well cooked, and above all things that the house ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade
... fouling may be readily removed by scrubbing with hot soda solution, but this solution has no effect on the metal fouling of cupro-nickel. It is necessary, therefore, to remove all metal fouling before assurance can be had that all powder fouling, has been removed and that the bore may be safely oiled. Normally, ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... I know are doing anything—scrubbing, washing up, polishing bath-taps, making swabs, covering splints,' said Pamela in a low voice. 'There are two of the Joyce girls at this hospital, just my age. Of course they don't let you ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but three men run and, turning about, hasted back to deal with the fourth. Reaching the scene of the struggle, I came on the man Humphrey outstretched upon his back in the moonlight and his face well-nigh shorn asunder. Seeing him thus so horribly dead, I went aside and fell to scrubbing my hatchet, blade and haft, with ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... above the world, where's the harm of living a little genteel? as to a round of toast and butter, and a few oysters, fresh opened, by way of a damper before dinner, no man need be ashamed of them, provided he pays as he goes: and as to living upon water-gruel, and scrubbing one's flesh with sand, one might as well be a galley-slave at once. You don't understand life, Sir, ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... his splashing and scrubbing he heard Jeff and Justin come shouting in for supper and Charlotte hushing them and telling them the news. The next instant ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... angry with herself for her childish restlessness. To-day was to be spent quite differently. What was there to be done in the village? Oh dear! nothing. Everybody was well and had flannel; nobody's pig had died; and it was Saturday morning, when there was a general scrubbing of doors and door-stones, and when it was useless to go into the school. But there were various subjects that Dorothea was trying to get clear upon, and she resolved to throw herself energetically into the gravest of all. She sat down in the library before her ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... an interesting young woman who lived in a neighboring tenement, whose widowed mother aided her in the support of the family by scrubbing a downtown theater every night. The mother, of English birth, was well bred and carefully educated, but was in the midst of that bitter struggle which awaits so many strangers in American cities who find that their social position tends ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... herself what she intended to do, either at the moment or afterwards. "This pan needs to be scoured." "Thae stockings maun be darned." "This sark is as black as the lum, and maun be plotted." "The floor needs scrubbing." "Tammas's coat is crying, 'A steek in time saves nine,' and by my faith it says true;" and so on. Nor did it signify much whether Thomas or any other person was in the house at the time—the words ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... when one bright Sunday the crew of an auxiliary cruiser were very busy cleaning ship—a very thorough and absorbing business. While the men were in the thick of the scrubbing, one of the crew stood up to straighten his back, and looked out through an open port in the vessel's side. As he looked he caught a glimpse of a low, black craft, hardly five hundred yards off, coming straight for ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... how the people lived; he meant the poor people. I told him no, not if he ever expected me to get anywhere else. If the inside of one of those houses was like the outside, I was sure and certain that I should send for a case of soap and a hundred barrels of hot water and stay there scrubbing the rest of my life. And, oh, yes, I ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the parade ground this is a simple matter enough; for there the golden rule appears to be—When in doubt, salute! The Colonel calls up his four Company Commanders. They salute. He instructs them to carry on this morning with coal fatigues and floor-scrubbing. The Company Commanders salute, and retire to their Companies, and call up their subalterns, who salute. They instruct these to carry on this morning with coal fatigues and floor-scrubbing. The sixteen subalterns salute, and retire to their platoons. Here they call ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... this afternoon," he said as he hung up the receiver. "Will she bring her own scrubbing things, or are we supposed to have them for her? This is some out of ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... knowledge that stray cobwebs had flourished and dust-bins run to seed during her absence. There was not much room for complaint, however, when she did arrive. The note of warning had been sounded by the servants of the Court, and there had been a general scrubbing and cleansing in the habitations of New Arden—that particular Arden which Mr. Granger had built for himself, and the very bricks whereof ought to have been stamped with his name and titles, as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon. For a week ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... was excessively hot and oppressive. The horses and mules were rolling on the prairie to refresh themselves, or feeding among the bushes in the hollow. We had dined; and Delorier, puffing at his pipe, knelt on the grass, scrubbing our service of tin plate. Shaw lay in the shade, under the cart, to rest for a while, before the word should be given to "catch up." Henry Chatillon, before lying down, was looking about for signs of snakes, the only living things that he feared, and uttering ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... he says we're none to mind th' things o' th' flesh, but only th' things o' th' spirit. Your spirit's your thoughts and meditations like. And that's why women's such ill uns—because they are alway minding th' things o' th' flesh: scrubbing, and washing, and baking, and sewing, and such like. And it stands to reason, Mistress Milisent, that what ye do wi' th' flesh mun be th' things o' th' flesh. ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... her dad that she wanted to fight with him, even though "fighting" in this case meant washing the coarse clothing of her father and Frank, scrubbing the rough, warped boards of the cabin floor, and frying ranch-cured bacon for every meal, and in making butter to sell, and counting the eggs every night and being careful to use only the cracked ones ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... 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 by the ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... he wandered about. Heavy quiet reigned. From a window he watched the meat-seller hang out a freshly killed deer, just brought from the mountains He went downstairs and out on the street, past the niece of the concierge, who was scrubbing the stairs. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... shoulder, lifted him quickly into the great white bath-tub and turned on the warm water. There was no use wasting time, and getting blood on white tiles that she would have to scrub. She was not unkind but she hated dirt, and partly supporting the child with one arm she applied herself to scrubbing him as vigorously as possible with the other hand. The shock of the water, not being very warm at first, brought returning consciousness to the boy for a moment, in one long shuddering sigh. The eyelashes ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... torrid sun worked with Niabon at dressmaking, for she had brought with her half a dozen bolts of print; and, as they sewed, they would sometimes sing together, whilst I and my two trusty men busied ourselves about the boat—scrubbing, scraping and polishing inside and out, cleaning and oiling our arms; or, when a shoal of bonita came alongside, getting out our lines and catching as many of the blue and marbled beauties as would last us for a day or two. But our chief relaxation, in which ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... as yet had never heard a word about dear Lorna; and when she led me into the kitchen (where everything looked beautiful), and told me not to mind, for a moment, about the scrubbing of my boots, because she would only be too glad to clean it all up after me, and told me how glad she was to see me, blushing more at every word, and recalling some of them, and stooping down for pots and pans, when I looked at her too ruddily—all these things ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... among the happiest of these happy souls, and nowhere were seen prettier pictures than they made, clustered round the fountains or tanks by the way, scrubbing, slapping, singing, and gossiping, as they washed or spread their linen on the green hedges and daisied grass in the bright spring weather. One envied the cheery faces under the queer caps, the stout arms that scrubbed all day, and were not ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... the greatest danger, but I believe it would be met in this way: You remember I said that the time of the inmates must be given wholly to the institution. The men could be kept busy at the housework, scrubbing and cleaning when not in the yard. Then too, they could be hired out to do odd jobs of rough work for the citizens; the wages all to go to the institution. Thus, if every man was kept busy eight hours each day, and received only his food and ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... new place, and set to work immediately scrubbing up extras of all sorts to make the reception of the honourable candidate for the county as brilliant as possible, not only for the honour of the house, but to make a favourable impression on the coming guest; for Augusta, the eldest ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... the other half is taken out in stench and nastiness. As tourists scatter themselves more profusely, the prices of the Tyrol will no doubt rise. Let us hope that increased prices will bring with them besoms, scrubbing- brushes, and other much-needed articles ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... little, little house! That one with the woodbine all over it—and I do believe—yes, it really is my little Dutch girl scrubbing the steps," and away she bounded and was ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... months Mrs. Tufton shone splendid as the wife of the British warrior. The Wellingsford Hospital rang with her praises and glistened with her scrubbing brush. She was the Admirable Crichton of the institution. What with men going off to the war and women going off to make munitions, there were never-ending temporary gaps in the staff. And there was never a gap that Mrs. Tufton did ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... her knives upon the scrubbing-board, and stole softly out into the yard. Madame Joilet was taking a nap upstairs, and, for a few minutes at least, the coast ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... until the year 1702, when the future Empress of the Russias was a girl of seventeen, that she makes her first dramatic appearance on the stage on which she was to play so remarkable a part. Then we find her acting as maid-servant to the Lutheran pastor of Marienburg, scrubbing his floors, nursing his children, and waiting on his resident pupils, in the midst of all the perils of warfare. The Russian hosts had for weeks been laying siege to Marienburg; and the Commandant, unable to defend the town any longer against such overwhelming odds, had announced his intention ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... this time Marie was earning two hundred and fifty dollars a week, all of which she gave to her employers. In spite of this large monetary return she was often cruelly beaten, was made to do the household scrubbing, and was, of course, never allowed to leave the house. Furthermore, as one of the methods of retaining a reluctant girl is to put her hopelessly in debt and always to charge against her the expenses incurred in securing her, Marie as an imported girl had begun at once with the ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... exactly," answered Mother Goose. "I sent Simple Simon to the store to get me a scrubbing brush, so I could clean the kitchen floor. But he hasn't come back, and I am afraid he has gone fishing in his mother's pail, to try to catch a whale. Oh, dear! My kitchen is so dirty that it needs scrubbing right away. But I cannot do it without a ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... to rights in the dining-room after awhile and the family had supper. Some bread and milk were sent up to Phil. Soon after I reached the laundry, Stuart found me there. He turned the hose on me and gave me a rough scrubbing. Then he wrapped me in a piece of a blanket and took me up-stairs to dry before the fire in his room. Phil had gone to bed, and was lying there sobbing, with his head under the pillows when we came in. He wouldn't talk at first, but after awhile he told Stuart that his father had given him a hard ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... after scrubbing the buffaloes he washed his head in the river and some of his hairs came out; so he wrapped them up in a leaf and set the packet to float down the stream. Lower down the stream two princesses were bathing with their attendants, and when they saw the packet ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... the Doctor, "Violet's had a tough time—a mighty tough time; three children in six years. The last one took most of her teeth; young horse doctor gave her some dope that about killed her; she's done all the cooking, washing, scrubbing and made garden for the family in that time—up every morning at five, seven days in the week to get breakfast for Dennis—Emma would look broken if she'd had that." The Doctor paused. "Like her mother—weak—vain—puts all of Denny's wages on the children's backs—Laura says Violet spends more ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... to work in the stone quarries at home, the others to be conveyed by the Commissioners' steam vessel Bellevue to the quarries on Ward's Island. The female prisoners are principally occupied in the sewing-room, in the brush-manufactory, in washing clothes, and scrubbing out the cells. ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... soldiers, knit by the hands of the young ladies of the State; blankets, shirts, and under clothing, from the cloth spun, woven, and made up by the ladies at home and shipped to Richmond to Colonel McMaster and a staff of the purest and best women of the land. Only such work as washing and scrubbing was done by negro servants, all the other was done by the ladies themselves. Too much praise cannot be given to Colonel McMaster for his indefatigable exertions, his tireless rounds of duty, to make the soldiers comfortable. The ladies were never too tired, night nor day, to go to the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... never once, so far as my knowledge goes, questioned even the extremest of Salvation Army Regulations. The more extreme they are, the more they please him. It is one of his many good sayings that you cannot make a man clean by washing his shirt. His scrubbing brush is apt, I think, to remove some of the skin with the dirt. He believes without question that the only human test of conversion is the uttermost willingness of the soul to be spent in the service of soul-saving. If a man wishes to keep anything back from God, his ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... part of the day in cleaning their room, washing the floor, wiping down the walls, the ceiling, the windows. Such a scrubbing had never been seen in that house since ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... interfering with nobody, and going out rarely. In appearance and manners they were gentlewomen, and rather haughty gentlewomen, too; but they kept no servant. How their work was done, Deerham could not conceive: it was next to impossible to fancy one of those ladies scrubbing a floor or making a bed. The butcher called for orders, and took in the meat, which was nearly always mutton-chops; the baker left his bread at the door, and the laundress was admitted inside the passage once ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... places. She sewed for a long time. At first she was paid fourteen cents a pair for finishing pants, then thirteen cents, then twelve cents, and finally ten cents, and then, as it was impossible to get bread for her children on what she could earn, she went to scrubbing. Being a very rugged woman physically, she is able to do this. If she had been frail and delicate, with a young babe, she would have been compelled to keep on finishing pants at ten cents ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... very properly be painted, as also the floors, to permit scrubbing, especially after the illness of an occupant. If papered, a chintz pattern is preferable; cretonne of similar design should then be used for furniture slips, etc. The woodwork may be white, with the chairs to match. There should be washable cotton rag-rugs, loosely woven to be grateful ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... talked. "When I went to get some oysters for Hannah, Mr. Laurence was in the fish shop, but he didn't see me, for I kept behind the fish barrel, and he was busy with Mr. Cutter the fishman. A poor woman came in with a pail and a mop, and asked Mr. Cutter if he would let her do some scrubbing for a bit of fish, because she hadn't any dinner for her children, and had been disappointed of a day's work. Mr. Cutter was in a hurry and said 'No', rather crossly, so she was going away, looking hungry and sorry, when Mr. Laurence hooked up a big fish with ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... see him now, as he went limping up and down the vestibule, with his grey hair sticking up in scrubbing-brush fashion, his shrivelled yellow face, and his large dark eyes, that were as keen as any hawk's, and yet soft as a buck's. The whole room was hung with trophies of his numerous hunting expeditions, and he had some story about every one of them, if only he ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... on a green beside a burn. Some of them (a strange thing in Scotland) are models of internal neatness; the beds adorned with patchwork, the shelves arrayed with willow-pattern plates, the floors and tables bright with scrubbing or pipeclay, and the very kettle polished like silver. It is the sign of a contented old age in country places, where there is little matter for gossip and no street sights. Housework becomes an art; and at evening, when the cottage interior shines and twinkles in the glow of the fire, the housewife ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was unlocked, and we filed into the barber-shop. Here were more men in convict stripes. They were the prison barbers. Also, there were bath-tubs, hot water, soap, and scrubbing-brushes. We were ordered to strip and bathe, each man to scrub his neighbor's back—a needless precaution, this compulsory bath, for the prison swarmed with vermin. After the bath, we were ...
— The Road • Jack London
... judged it discreet to absent himself from the next meal. He now stood arraying himself from a pile of furs, and talking with Tyrker, who sat near him blinking in the fire-glow. Save a couple of house-thralls scrubbing at the lower end of the room, no one else was present, Eric having started on his morning round of the stables, the smithies, and ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... description; but the inside of the house is 'tidy,' and one can see the gleam of polished things, telling of repeated rubbings, scrubbings, and scourings. In fact, cleanliness in Holland has become almost a disease, and scrubbing and banging go on from morning until night both ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... dream of bliss Sara plunged directly into a deep vortex of house-cleaning, for she was determined that the premises should be in perfect order upon the Macons' arrival. For four days chaos reigned, with the broom and scrubbing-brush for prime ministers. Morton took refuge at the store, but poor Sam, not so fortunate, had to face it all; and he felt as if the deluge had come again, with some new and harrowing accompaniments, in which woman's ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... bath was taken from the severe weekly scrubbing which Aunt Cindy gave him with a hard washrag, and he felt that he'd rather die at once than have to bathe ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... sometimes she has never known what cleanliness was. Tact is necessary here to avoid hurting the feelings of our poor friends, though some are far more sensitive than others. The Boston woman whose visitor sent soap, scrubbing brushes, mop, and pail, with the message that she was coming on the morrow to use them, took this very broad hint and made the home tidy for the first time in many months, but it is unnecessary to say that all poor ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... employment. The rigging was set up weekly, so that the shrouds and stays were like lines drawn with a ruler. Enough rope-yarn was pulled, and spun-yarn spun, to supply a navy-yard for months. Laggards were set to scrubbing the rust off the chain cables, and sharpening with files the flukes of the anchors. When such work failed, the men were drilled in the use of cutlasses and single sticks; forming long lines down the gun-deck, and slashing away with right good will at the word of the instructor. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... house rested from William. But there was something in the manner of Jane's scrubbing the front doorstep or sweeping out the rooms, a certain viciousness, that persuaded me that the story had not ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... figure, found their way to the tea-rooms and restaurants. But the Duchess had encouraged her daughter's belief that she was too fine a lady to soil her hands with work, and she strummed idly on the dilapidated piano while her mother roughened her fine hands with washing and scrubbing. This was in the early days, when Dad, threatened with starvation, had passed the hotels at a run to avoid temptation, for which he made amends by drinking himself blind for a week at a time. Then, after years of genteel poverty, the Duchess had ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... hunting, Fir-twister said nothing to them of the old mannikin and of the blows which he himself had received, and thought, "When they stay at home, they may just try their chance with the little scrubbing-brush;" and the mere thought of that gave ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... tightened within herself, but she marched on and found 13A. A dirty house, pots with ferns in the two grimy windows, and the walls streaky with white stains against the grey. The door was ajar and, pushing it a little, she saw a servant-girl on her knees scrubbing the floor. At the noise of her step the girl ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... watch on deck turning-to at daybreak, and washing-down, scrubbing, and swabbing the decks. This, with filling the "scuttle butt" with fresh water, and coiling up the rigging, usually occupies the time until seven bells (half after seven), when all hands get breakfast. At eight the day's work begins, and lasts until ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the world! He tried to see himself with his hair clipped and his beard shaven and the white cravat and waistcoat replaced by the harlequin costume of the jailbird. He tried to see himself making his own bed, and scrubbing his own floor, and standing at his cell door with a tin pot in his hand, waiting for his skilly. It was so absurd, so out of the question, that he nearly laughed outright. He was in a dream—in a nightmare! He shook himself, he pinched himself, in order to wake up. He was ready in sudden rage ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... oddities, there was not a neater, more scrupulously tidy, or more punctiliously ordered house, in Clerkenwell, in London, in all England. There were not cleaner windows, or whiter floors, or brighter Stoves, or more highly shining articles of furniture in old mahogany; there was not more rubbing, scrubbing, burnishing and polishing, in the whole street put together. Nor was this excellence attained without some cost and trouble and great expenditure of voice, as the neighbours were frequently reminded when the good lady of the house overlooked ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... pregnant, is scrubbing the floor. Seized with giddiness, she staggers to her feet and leans against the wall, staring before her ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... found upon her knees before the kitchen range, polishing the nickel name-plate on the oven door. A dish-pan of hot water and a scrubbing brush stood upon the floor beside her. As Mrs. Brewster came in, Sary glanced ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... expected, we brought Willie and Tommy to our house in Sarnia to prepare them for entering upon their new life. The first thing was to divest them of their dirty rags, and give them each a thorough good scrubbing; then they were put into two new little suits of grey cloth which my wife and I had each taken a share in making with the sewing machine. Thus, clean and neat, these two little fellows of six years old were shipped off to their new home. Walpole Island, where Joshua the catechist was ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... incredibly dirty and horrid!—poor boys—it doesn't seem to be their fault, either; and they are so ashamed and so utterly miserable when I am obliged to know about the horror of their condition. . . . Dear, it will be angelic of you to give me a good, hot scrubbing. I could go to sleep ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... her lingual weakness in the sleep-walking scene. For instance, when, after having reigned queen of Scotland for several months, the happy thought of washing her hands strikes her, she commits the absurdity of scrubbing them with her hair. On the other hand, she pronounces the words "damned spot" with a, perfection of accent that constrains us to believe that she must have taken at least a few lessons in pronunciation from some of the leading ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... several days in the making and putting up of some very unusual and attractive window curtains and portieres; painting the stones that framed the fireplace, the crude window-casings and door jamb; and in draping certain corner recesses which were to achieve dignity as clothes closets. They were scrubbing the floor when Percival passed on his ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... engaged lodgings was Hotel d'Orient, in the Rue Daunou. The situation was convenient, very near the Place Vendome and the Rue de la Paix. But the house was undergoing renovations which made it as unpresentable as a moulting fowl. Scrubbing, painting of blinds, and other perturbing processes did all they could to make it uncomfortable. The courtyard was always sloppy, and the whole condition of things reminded me forcibly of the state of Mr. Briggs's household while the mason was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... opening to the air from the break, because of tearing of tissues by end of bone, condition is very dangerous; first treatment may save life, by preventing infection. Before reducing fracture, and without stirring the patient much, after scrubbing your ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... afternoon she took a little bag, with shears and sponge and a small scrubbing brush, and went out. It was a grey, wintry day, with saddened, dark-green fields and an atmosphere blackened by the smoke of foundries not far off. She went quickly, darkly along the causeway, heeding nobody, through the town to ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... appeared to charge Jorian DeWitt with having misconducted himself. The moment Lika had gone upstairs for two or three hours' sleep, he said to me: 'Richie, you and I have no time for that. We must have a man at Falmouth's house by eight o'clock. If the scrubbing-maid on all fours-not an inelegant position, I have remarked—declares him dead, we are at Bartlett's (money-lender) by ten: and in Chippenden borough before two post meridian. As I am a tactician, there is mischief! but I will turn it to my uses, as I did our ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... on, as she finished scrubbing away at the muddy dress. "I think that is the best I can do. It will need washing to make it clean again. But here comes Bunker with the pony cart, so we will start for your house. Your mother will be wondering what has become ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... my ears, and once I heard him descend into the cellar and there was a faint digging sound as he performed some outlandish task. Then I heard him in the hallway and on the stairs. I heard the splashing of water and the sound of scrubbing. ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
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