"Ironing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to these schools, but they soon favored them. One cannot enter these schools without a diploma from the common schools. Each teacher is given twenty-four pupils. The girls are taught to make their own apparel, gardening, cooking, washing, ironing, mending and keeping ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... When the ironing board was finally located, Mother had something for him to do. And when he was finished with that, Dad called for his help. So the afternoon wore on without letup—and also without any signs of progress ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... but obeyed and consoled herself by giving the apprentice, who was ironing hose and towels by her side, a little push. Gervaise had a cap belonging to Mme Boche in her hand and was ironing the crown with a round ball, when a tall, bony woman came in. She was ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... she sighed as she took a turn at the ironing while she told her the news, and Mary washed the dinner things, "I am dreadfully nervous. I wish we had a cook and a parlourmaid, and I wish we were able to buy all the best things that can be got. Granny does so like to have nice food and ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... they bound by the marriage laws? What will these crowds of tiny men and petty women do who come from the country parlors and corn-shocks of the West? They will puddle around a little while, paint and muddle a few petty things, then marry and go back to the ironing-board and the furrow where they belong. What's the matter with American art? It's too cursed normal, that's what. It's too neat and sweet and restrained—no license, no "go" to it. What's the matter with you, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... very absent-minded man. But Uncle Roger says the supply in Mr. Marwood's vacation never amounts to much. I know an awfully funny story about old Mr. Davidson. He used to be the minister in Baywater, you know, and he had a large family and his children were very mischievous. One day his wife was ironing and she ironed a great big nightcap with a frill round it. One of the children took it when she wasn't looking and hid it in his father's best beaver hat—the one he wore on Sundays. When Mr. Davidson went to church next Sunday he put the hat on without ever looking into the ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... man ever talked like that in this world. I don't believe I talked just so; but the fact is, in reporting one's conversation, one cannot help BLAIR-ing it up more or less, ironing out crumpled paragraphs, starching limp ones, and crimping and plaiting a little sometimes; it is as natural as prinking ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... in!" exclaimed one of the women, glancing over her ironing-board to the yard. "What do he ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... if there were a Medical Inspector in the army who was not a first rate judge of the art of folding and ironing a sheet or pillow-slip; of the particular tuck which brought out the outlines of the corners of a mattress, as seen through a counterpane; and of the art and mystery of cleaning a floor. It did seem as if they had all reached office through their great proficiency ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... wife must not sit up washing and ironing all night again. She ought to have help in her sympathy and labors for the poor fugitives, and, I should think there are many there ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Sunny Boy sat at one end of the ironing board and watched her and ate his sponge cake—which was almost as good as the kind with pink icing which were only for dessert—and drank his milk. Then Harriet gave him the skirt to carry back to Aunt Bessie and he remembered to ask about the oven. Harriet ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... large kettle of yarn to attend upon. Lucretia and self rinse, scour through many waters, get out, dry, attend to, bring in, do up and sort 110 score of yarn; this with baking and ironing. Then went ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... be emphasized is the fact that she did her own washing. The more accurate statement would be that she did her own laundry, including the processes, not only of rubbing the clothes clean, but of boiling, starching, bluing, and ironing. This, after a day of standing in other employment, is a vital strain more severe than may perhaps be readily realized. Saleswomen and shop-girls have not the powerful wrists and muscular waists of accustomed washerwomen, and ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... sat by the fire cutting clothes-pegs; Margaret was ironing clothes. Thurston rose when he saw the priest, and both ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... linen lay on the ground, but a quantity had not yet seen the water. After a considerable amount of jabbering and talking, it was agreed that the task could be accomplished. The sun was hot, and the gentlemen must not be very particular about the ironing. While one half of the damsels set to work again in the stream, the rest, headed by the mistress, began to hang up the washed articles, a young girl being despatched apparently for further assistance. This looked like being in earnest, and the dame assured Norris that ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... other end, just off the parental bed-chamber, has been converted into an out-door sleeping-room for John C. Percival. The Governor's lady has no nursemaid. She does her own housework, her own washing and ironing, and she takes care of her own baby. (There is no such thing on Trigger Island as a servant. More than one woman who reads this tale will sigh and murmur something about Paradise.) Ruth still teaches in the little ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... likely negro wench, of about thirty-five years of age, a Creole born, has been brought up in a gentleman's family, and capable of doing all sorts of work belonging thereto, as needle-work of all sorts and in the best manner; also washing, ironing, cooking, and every other thing that can be expected from such a slave: also two negro boys of about 12 or 13 years old, likely, healthy, and well-shaped, and understand some English. Likewise two healthy negro slaves of about 18 years of age, of agreeable tempers and fit for any kind of business: ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... question as to whether she was to become a laundress or not did not occur to Katusha, either. She looked with pity at the thin, hard-worked laundresses, some already in consumption, who stood washing or ironing with their thin arms in the fearfully hot front room, which was always full of soapy steam and draughts from the windows, and thought with horror that she might have shared ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... of an ironing-woman, were apprentices in a foundry of the near-by Ronda. The younger passed his days in a continuous capering, indulging in death-defying leaps, climbing trees, walking on his hands and performing acrobatic stunts from all the ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... his clothes and went down stairs to the sitting-room. Aunt Stanshy was ironing. She generally did her ironing in the sitting-room, as the kitchen was very small, and, on a hot day, it was so hot there that one felt like sizzling at the touch ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... enough to pay a Chinaman for "doing up" one of her pretty muslins. Neither had she the facilities for doing them herself, had she been skilled in that sort of labor; for even to do your own washing and ironing pre-supposes the usual conveniences of a laundry, and these did not belong to the furniture of the outside kitchen. She had not worn her linen lawn since the visit to the mill. The dust which blew freely through every crack of the shrunken boards precluded such extravagance. Thus ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... Girls up-stairs in the wash-room are busy rubbing at the tubs. Some girls are starching, and others are sending baskets down on the elevator for girls below to hang in the drying-room. Others are in the assorting-room putting away clothes-bags into numerous boxes. The ironing-room farther on is filled with busy workers. Days come during every week when time is spent in the study of laundry chemistry. Rust and mildew stains and scorching are some of the problems of the Laundry, and they find solution. Soap, starch, water, and bluing have their composite qualities ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... it wouldn't be nice if Miss Grant were to get her face all puckered and creasy like that, just as if it wanted ironing out, as Susette did with my frock when Murray scrunched it all up under his pillow to hide it. But I suppose you couldn't ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... clear-starching and ironing domestic drudgery, and to better the matter turning to type-setting in a grimy printing-office! Call the care of china and silver, the sweeping of carpets, the arrangement of parlors and sitting rooms, drudgery; and go into a factory and spend the day amid the whir and clatter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... determination he visited his lovely and all unconscious mistress the next day, but the fair lady was busy ironing.—"I shall see her again this evening," thought he, as he turned slowly towards the town; and see her that evening he did. They rambled out towards the cape, or promontory, almost invariably the ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... had been a problem, until Judy solved it by placing an ironing-board across two chairs, and draping the whole into the ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... bathroom. The married soldiers have a living-room, scullery, and one, two, or three bedrooms according to the size of their families. A laundry is provided adjacent to the married quarters, equipped with washing-troughs, wringer, drying-closet, and ironing-room; and the women are encouraged to use this in preference to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... clothes, going to his oyster-beds or his cranberry-marsh, it was always the same. He was usually in his shirt-sleeves in summer. His white cotton shirt, with its easy collar and wristbands, seemed always to have just come from the ironing-board. "It ain't no trouble at all to keep James clean," I have heard Mrs. Parsons say, in her funny little way; "he picks his way round for all the world just like a pussycat, and never gets ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... The ears, if long, are best blocked with cork cut to fit the inside, and then bound round with "wrapping cotton." The shrivelled ears of these and much larger animals may be got into proper shape by careful ironing. ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... went slowly around the house and out at the front gate, while good Mrs. Dunn returned to her ironing, a few clothes having to be ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... fresh as she had been before the never-ending work had tired her. Tired her! Yes, she had not been one of the strong ones; and life with its blows and knocks had been too brutal for her! He had not forgotten how, after a day's cleaning or ironing, she would throw herself on the sofa and say in a complaining little voice, "I am so tired!" Poor little thing, this earth had not been her home, she had only played once, on tour, as it were, and then had gone ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... week after, it chanced that William's wife was staying up late one night to finish her ironing, she doing the washing for Mr and Mrs Hardcome. Her husband had finished his supper, and gone to bed as usual some hour or two before. While she ironed she heard him coming downstairs; he stopped to put on his boots at the stair-foot, where he always left them, and then came on into the living-room ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... with one eye, with disheveled hair, seated on the ground like an Indian idol, ironing clothes. The sad-iron was carefully imitated, being of copper with coals of red tinsel and smoke-wreaths ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... when, already tired from her work in the factory, she had stood sorting, sprinkling, folding, ironing, the two women got to a state where they scarcely dared to look at each other: just a passing glance, a hardish ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... at all, called her "girl," thus: "Girl, get down one of those Number Seventeens for me—with the pink ribbons." Ray did not resent the tone. She thought about Miss Jevne as she worked. She thought about her at night when she was washing and ironing her other shirtwaist for next day's wear. In the Halsted Street Bazaar the girls had been on terms of dreadful intimacy with those affairs in each other's lives which popularly are supposed to be private knowledge. They knew the sum which each earned per week; how ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... the very dregs of society, and as the wife of a drunkard, gambler, and rake; a man—or rather a brute—who lives by his wits, abuses me like the pickpocket that he is, half starves me, and expects me to do all the work, cooking, cleaning, and everything else, even to washing and ironing of the few clothes he hasn't pawned; me! a lady brought up to have servants to wait upon her ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... head from the white petticoat she was ironing, and gazed out of the doorway and down the valley with a warm light in her eyes and a glowing face. The snow-tipped mountains far above and away, the fir- covered, cedar-ranged foothills, and, lower down, the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cheerily, and Lili said to Mrs. March, with abrupt seriousness, "Augusta was finding a handkerchief under the table, and she was washing it and ironing it before she did bring it. I have scolded her, and I have made ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... which followed January 5. There is no reason to suppose he did not fulfil his promise. On the Friday the woman was suffering from neuralgia. In the evening, however, she was in her usual health and spirits, and did her ironing up to eight o'clock. She went to bed between half-past nine and ten, and took with her a tumbler of water. In ten minutes the little girl and her brother went upstairs. They went to the mother, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... ironing shirts and other things in the laundry, and wrote in all my spare time. I tried to keep on at both, but often fell asleep with the pen in my hand. Then I left the laundry and wrote all the time, and lived and dreamed again. After three months' trial I gave up writing, having decided that I was a ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... ironing this time, but she would have put the flatiron back on the stove and taken her brother to the sitting room if he had permitted. "The idea of a man like you, Sears, havin' to sit on an old broken-down chair out here in the wash-shed," ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... length walks proudly from the platform in her completed new gown, while the young dressmaker looks anxiously after her to make sure that it "hangs right behind." Other girls are doing washing and ironing with the drudgery removed in accordance with advanced Tuskegee methods. Still others are hard at work on hats, mats, and dresses, while boys from the tailoring department sit crosslegged working on ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... the Ladies Aid Society in session. Jimmy was sitting on the grass in his own front yard, in full view of Sarah Jane, who was ironing clothes in her cabin with strict orders to keep him at home. Billy was in the ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... than a minute they were talking over old times together in the little sitting-room over the shop. CYRIL MUSH was delighted. "You can't charge an old friend anything for just ironing his hat," he said, with his peculiarly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... question he was rummaging among his possessions for some studs he had mislaid, and, thinking Mollie would help him in the search, he went in quest of her. He found her in the close little kitchen, ironing a pile of handkerchiefs and starched things. The place felt like an oven that hot summer's afternoon, and poor Mollie's face was sadly flushed; she looked worried and overheated, and it was then that Audrey's words flashed on him with a sort of electrical illumination—'I am afraid Mollie ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... spirits. However, by means of taking her to see every relative we had in the vicinity, we disposed of the time very satisfactorily. She remained a few days longer than she had intended, so that Dorothy, who is unapproachable in ironing, might do ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... unsafe in the city of New York, and being destitute of money, he applied to the Abolitionists for advice. They sent him to New Rochelle, where he let himself to a Quaker, called Friend Joseph Houseman, of whom he hired a small hut. There, Hen, whom he now calls Henriet, takes in washing and ironing, and there a babe has been born to them. When the war broke out he enlisted; partly because he thought it would help him to pay off some old scores with slaveholders, and partly because a set of rowdies ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... The daughter was busy at some ironing in the outer room; she was a dull, lack-lustre creature, and though she comprehended the gifts that had been brought her, seemed hardly to have life enough to thank the donor. That wasn't quite like a fairy tale, Daisy thought. No doubt this ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... what a violent headache your servant suffered from the other day after ironing all those clothes you had in the wash? She owed that headache entirely to this work which she did for you. She had remained too long standing over the coals over which her flat-irons were being heated. You know already that when charcoal burns, it is from the carbon uniting with the ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... stranger?" Alix said. "If Peter's a stranger," she added animatedly, "what is an intimate friend? Peter walks through this house at all hours; you can't wash your hair or do a little ironing without having Peter under your feet; he borrows money from me; he bullies Hong ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... steadily toward their accomplishment, and he was so successful in inspiring her with those same ideals that her pride helped her over many a weary day's cleaning. She entered into them week after week and became expert at ironing, baking, and all the little offices of the domestic altar. All her strength was given to her work each day, and for a time she succeeded comfortably, but as the days shortened and the routine became more exacting she longed for the ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... numberless tasks housewives find to do from morning till night. In the afternoon, when other work was done, and little Vic asleep or happy with her playthings, Christie clapped laces, sprinkled muslins, and picked out edgings at the great table where Mrs. Wilkins stood ironing, fluting, and crimping till the kitchen bristled all over with ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... days out. Ironing day; blowing a gale of wind; women are making hard work of it and getting seasick—Hove to at 8 bells this morning; lays easy; kicked Ham away from the wheel and steered his trick; afraid I can't make a sailor of him; wish I'd saved ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... house. Dere wuz five women who done de washing an' ironing. Dey had to make de soap. Dat wuz done by letting water drip over oak ashes. Dis made oak ash lye, and dis wuz used in making soap. After de clothes had soaked in dis lye-soap and water, dey put de clothes on tables and beat ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... immigrants in the same lot of persecution which their newly arrived countrymen had organized and were carrying out against the Trinidadians proper. It happened that, on the occasion to which we wish particularly [88] to refer, the woman in question was at home, engaged in her usual occupation of ironing for her honest livelihood. Suddenly she heard a heavy blow in the street before her door, and almost simultaneously a loud scream, which, on looking hastily out, she perceived to be the cry of a boy of some ten ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... when I reached home, with the large warm drops of the storm's beginning, I stopped in the sitting-room a moment before going to my room. The smell of ironing scented the house, but Mrs. Libby was resting placidly in the rocking-chair, her feet on a cushioned stool. She was eating some peaches, tearing them apart from the stone with strong, juice-dropping fingers, ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... O. K.," Hugh told him, smilingly. "We're pushing along pretty fairly, and ironing out some of the wrinkles as we go. Lots still to be done before we're ready to try conclusions with your team at Belleville; but with such a capable coach as Mr. Leonard, we believe we'll ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... much easier than ironing," said Bobbie, taking the clean dry dresses off the line. "I do love to see things come clean. Oh—I don't know how we shall wait till it's time to know what presentation ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... a mirthful-looking set of girls. Some were cooking the dinner, some ironing, others reading English aloud; but each occupation seemed a pastime, and whenever they spoke to the Sisters they clung about them as if they were their mothers. I heard them read the Bible and an historical lesson, as ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... confinement which will permit the physician to use his right hand,—that will be the right side of the patient as she lies in bed. One objection to a double bed is its tendency to sag. This tendency can be obviated however by placing an ironing board under the spring from side to side, or by using shelves from a book case. This expedient will support the mattress, thereby rendering the bed firm and free from any sagging tendency. The position of the ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... Garland would say after the girls had kissed one another, "I was up early this morning—soon after dawn. Madge Blair and I had our arms in the tubs by half-past three, and she had got the pot to boil before that. So now I am ready for the ironing, and—" ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Maddy accepted the offered relief, and utterly worn out with her constant vigils, she was soon sleeping soundly in her own room, while Flora, in the little shed, or back room of the house, was busy with her ironing. Thus there was none to follow Agnes as she went slowly into the sick-room where Uncle Joseph lay, his thin face upturned to the light, and his lips occasionally moving as he muttered in his sleep. There was a strange contrast between that wasted imbecile and that proud, queenly woman, ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... general spiritual failure of a man approaching forty. He thought of escaping into a monastery somewhat as street girls think of going into a house where they will be free from the dangers of the chase, from worry about food and lodging, and where they will not have to do their own washing and ironing. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... decomposition of the fluid begins, and you will have floods of light for the mere cost of the machine. I've nearly got the lighting part, but I want to attach to it a heating, cooking, washing and ironing apparatus. It's going to be the great thing, but we'd better keep this appropriation going while I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to work in the field when I was able. That was when I was in the country. When I came to the city I usually did washing and ironing. Now I can't do anything. All the people I used to work for is dead. There was one woman in particular. She was a good woman, too. I don't have any help at all now, except my son. He has a family of his own—wife and seven children. Right now, he is cut off ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... august as a goddess. Florrie, moving backwards, had now got nearly to the scullery door with her wringing and splashing and wiping; and she had dirtied even her face. As Hilda absently looked at her, she thought somehow of Mr. Cannon's white wristbands. She saw the washing and the ironing of those wristbands, and a slatternly woman or two sighing and grumbling amid wreaths of steam, and a background of cinders and suds and sloppiness.... All that, so that the grand creature might have a rim of pure white ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... black servants are cheap down in this region, and by the way, dear, when you go up to Crabtree again, you must start an inquiry for a good colored cook among your lady friends. Tell them you want a good one, who understands washing and ironing and all about cooking. At present we boys do all the cooking down here and we send our laundry up to Crabtree, where there are only three Chinamen to the ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... of using a damp cloth over a hot iron. If the velvet after steaming is found to be still too imperfect or faded to be used on the hat plain, it may be gathered a half inch apart or more and used either on the crown or the brim, or it may be mirrored by ironing on the right side with a hot iron, always ironing lightly one way, using a sweeping motion. Do not let the iron rest for a second on the material or it will ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin
... nevertheless, which—or the spot must be a wretched one indeed—cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree. Late as the Dutch clock' showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very wide awake, with a very tight night-cap on his head, and a night-gown very much too small for him on ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... borrowings did entail first-hand information concerning their affairs. For by common consent it was not Mulberry Court etiquette to borrow without stating exactly the service required of the article in question. When, for instance, you sent an emissary to ask for the O'Dowds' ironing board ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... close of the fourth), if the lochia is entirely white or yellow, with no blood, she may begin carefully to go about the house. There should be no lifting, shoving, pulling, wringing, sweeping, washing, ironing, or other heavy exercise for at least another two weeks, better four weeks. Any variance from this program usually means backache, lassitude, diminished milk supply, and frequently a general invalidism ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... went into the kitchen this morning to get warm," Jill observed later in the evening, "I found Bridget ironing; the stove was red-hot, the bath boiler was bubbling and shaking with the imprisoned steam, and the outside door was wide open. It struck me that there was heat enough going out of doors, not to mention the superheated air ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... came from Rough Creek away off on Little River and some from Bullhead Mountain and the Binner girls from Collins Gap. If several of the girls took a notion to stay all night, Aunt Lindie Reffitt made a pallet on the floor of extra quilts and many a time she brought out the ironing board, placed it between two chairs for a bed for the youngsters, Josie Binner, her hair so curly you couldn't tell which end was growing in her head, always wanted to outdo everyone else. Some said Josie was briggaty because she had ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... Bella returned home they found that Mary Erskine had made all the preparations necessary for the commencement of the school. She had made a desk for the two children by means of the ironing-board, which was a long and wide board, made very smooth on both sides. This board Mary Erskine placed across two chairs, having previously laid two blocks of wood upon the chairs in a line with the back side of the board, ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... this bad habit myself; but a little incident, which I will relate, cured me. Not many years after I had attained my majority, a poor widow, named Blake, did my washing and ironing. She was the mother of two or three little children, whose sole dependence for food and raiment was on the labour ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... of a life of labour and of a vineyard were worthless. As for love, I ought to tell you that living with a woman who has read Spencer and has followed you to the ends of the earth is no more interesting than living with any Anfissa or Akulina. There's the same smell of ironing, of powder, and of medicines, the same curl-papers ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... healthy household work. It never occurs to her that she can or ought to fill any of these domestic gaps into which her mother always steps; and she comforts herself with the thought, 'I don't know how; I can't; I haven't the strength. I cant' sweep; it blisters my hands. If I should stand at the ironing-table an hour, I should be ill for a week. As to cooking, I don't know anything about it.' And so, when the cook, or the chambermaid, or nurse, or all together, vacate the premises, it is the mamma who is successively cook, and chambermaid, and nurse; and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... more abashed than pleased. Lance—to make up for his ignominious rescue at their last meeting— performed a wonderful progress, holding on by his fingers and toes along the ledge of the dresser; and Marilda, setting her back (a broad one) against the ironing-board, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... house-keeper counts either washing, ironing, or bread-making as part of her domestic cares. All the family washing goes out to a laundry; and being attended to by those who make that department of labor a specialty, it comes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... mends dress; covers slate-frame; makes jelly-cake and a pudding; goes to nursery and sends nurse down to finish ironing.] ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... willing, if unskilled, hands. To her surprise, she discovered that the work for which she had so often lightly given orders was beyond her strength. Try as she would, she could not accomplish the task of washing and ironing table napkins and delicate embroidered linen pieces in the way she knew they should be done. Will power can accomplish a good deal, but it cannot always make up for ignorance, and the girl who had mastered difficult subjects ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... enter her precincts. Take, for instance, the grand question of housekeeping. Fancy living in a land where all the servants are skilled and civil, if not all trustworthy and honest; where washing-days and ironing-days and baking-days are unknown; where there are no staircases to sweep down and no front-door steps to scour; where rents and eating and all other household expenses may be gauged in accordance ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... "but who's afraid of Jack Frost? Danny Fox and Mr. Wicked Weasel, to say nothing of Hungry Hawk, are more to be feared." And that good lady rabbit began her ironing, for it was Tuesday, the day when all Rabbitville irons Monday's wash, ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... day Jack DID get out, and, while Mother and Sal were ironing came to the door with the axe on ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... anecdotes, illustrative of the same state of feeling, from a lady of ancient Scottish family accustomed to visit her poor dependants on the property, and to notice their ways. She was calling at a decent cottage, and found the occupant busy carefully ironing out some linens. The lady remarked, "Those are fine linens you have got there, Janet." "Troth, mem," was the reply, "they're just the gudeman's deed claes, and there are nane better i' the parish." On another occasion, when visiting an excellent woman, ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... the young artist she bowed, and at the same time, with Parisian adroitness, and with the presence of mind that pride can lend, she turned round to shut the door in a glass partition through which Hippolyte might have caught sight of some linen hung by lines over patent ironing stoves, an old camp-bed, some wood-embers, charcoal, irons, a filter, the household crockery, and all the utensils familiar to a small household. Muslin curtains, fairly white, carefully screened this lumber-room—a capharnaum, as the French call such a domestic laboratory,—which was lighted ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... to Paris at the beginning of 1831. Her establishment there was of the simplest. It consisted of three little rooms on the fifth story (a mansarde) in a house on the Quai Saint-Michel. She did the washing and ironing herself, the portiere assisting her in the rest of the household work. The meals came from a restaurant, and cost two francs a day. And thus she managed to keep within her allowance. I make these and the following statements on her ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... in a suit of black broadcloth, such as will not undermine the foundations of the Establishment by a paltry plebeian glossiness or an unseemly whiteness at the edges; in a snowy cravat, which is a serious investment of labour in the hemming, starching, and ironing departments; and in a hat which shows no symptom of taking to the hideous doctrine of expediency, and shaping itself according to circumstances; let him have a parish large enough to create an external ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... teacher fifteen dollars a month for board. That included his washing and ironing. I really earn my board by the work I do here Saturdays and Sundays, and in the mornings and evenings before and after school. But I will pay you twelve dollars a month for ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... leather,[FN474] opened it and drew forth a pair of knitting needles, wherewith she fell to work and stinted not till she had made a beautiful zone, which she folded up in a wrapper after cleaning it and ironing it, and laid it under her pillow. Then she doffed her dress till she was mother-naked and lying down beside Nur al-Din shampoo'd him till he awoke from his heavy sleep. He found by his side a maiden like virgin silver, softer than silk and delicater than a tail of fatted sheep, than standard ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... then it was taken out of the washing-tub. It was starched, hung over the back of a chair in the sunshine, and was then laid on the ironing-blanket; then came the warm box-iron. "Dear lady!" said the collar. "Dear widow-lady! I feel quite hot. I am quite changed. I begin to unfold myself. You will burn a hole in me. Oh! I offer ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... ministering angel, you know," said Billie, "sent to do the washing and ironing and scullery work. Except for cooking meals, we expect to take life ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... strength. Now he lay watching his illness with a curious mixture of fierce resentment and proprietorial pride. He spent a good deal of his time trying to think of ways in which he could circumvent the choking sensation that often came to him. Marcella brought some comfort by placing the kitchen ironing board across the bed, resting on the backs of two chairs so that he could lean forward on it. Sometimes he slept so, his grey head jerking forward and backward in ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... was the earth's great ironing day. And - above all - a day that converts a railway traveller into a martyr, and a first-class carriage into a moving representation of the Black Hole ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... She was ironing at the time, and her back was partly toward me. She turned about with a startled or wondering look in her face and said, "What ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a little nun, writes in her sealed paper: "Emily is upstairs ironing. I am sitting in the dining-room in the rocking-chair before the fire with my feet on the fender. Papa is in the parlour. Tabby and Martha are, I think, in the kitchen. Keeper and Flossy are, I do not know where. Little ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... worked very late watering her flowers, and trimming them, and then ironing out a little clean white cap for the morrow; and then sitting down under the open lattice to prick out all old Annemie's designs by the strong light of the full moon that flooded her hut with ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... seldom found time to touch. One there was, however, who gave to Maude every possible assistance, and this was John. "Having tried his hand," as he said, "at everything in Marster Norton's school," he proved of invaluable service—sweeping, dusting, washing dishes, cleaning knives, and once ironing Dr. Kennedy's shirts, when old Hannah was in what he called her "tantrums." But alas for John! the entire print of the iron upon the bosom of one, to say nothing of the piles of starch upon another, and more than all, the tremendous scolding ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... in the neighbourhood, for luring maids from the smaller homes. Of course Mrs. Airedale and Mrs. Collie could afford to pay any wages at all. So now the best he could do was to have Mrs. Spaniel, the charwoman, come up from the village to do the washing and ironing, two days a week. The rest of the work he undertook himself. On a clear afternoon, when the neighbours were not looking, he would take his own shirts and things down to the pond—putting them neatly in the bottom of the ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... you mean to say that our Sarah, daughter of the Reverend Samuel Blake, wilfully broke the Sabbath by ironing?" Concentrated horror appeared ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... your happy selves, and father and I will take you and fetch you. Give me the Lamb, dear, and you and Jane put clean lace in your red evening frocks, and I shouldn't wonder if you found they wanted ironing. This paraffin smell is ghastly. Run ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... and yet that did not seem possible, because it was only two days since he went to Sunday school, and yesterday his mother had done the washing. She always washed on Monday and ironed on Tuesday. This must be Tuesday, but maybe he was wrong about that. She was not ironing, so it could not be Tuesday. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... [At her ironing.] Yes, yes, that'll be it. If he wants two hundred, six hundred's sure to have come. There's no ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... gray and drizzling through the window of Uncle Tom's cabin. It looked on downcast faces, the images of mournful hearts. The little table stood out before the fire, covered with an ironing-cloth; a coarse but clean shirt or two, fresh from the iron, hung on the back of a chair by the fire, and Aunt Chloe had another spread out before her on the table. Carefully she rubbed and ironed every fold and every hem, with the most scrupulous exactness, every ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... whirling them very rapidly in a machine, whereby the water is thrown out of them by centrifugal force or attraction. Thence the clothes, somewhat damp, are placed in hot-air closets and speedily dried; after which they pass into the Ironing-room and are finished. The charge here is 4 cents for two hours in the Washing-room and 2 cents for two hours in the Ironing-room, which is calculated to be time enough for doing the washing of an average family. Everything but soap is supplied. ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... I am busying about, Sewing on buttons, tapes, and strings, Hanging the week's wet washing out Or ironing the children's things, Sweeping and dusting, cleaning grates, Scrubbing the dresser or the floors, Washing the greasy dinner plates, Scouring the brasses ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... in his high chair as good as gold, a precious, watching me doing of the ironing. Get along with you, do—my iron's ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... can't be beat too much, neither; but it don't follow you're to stand beating 'em for ever. I've no patience. Where am I going to do my ironing? I should like the minister for to tell me;—or get meals, or anything else? I don't see what possessed Josiah to go and see his ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... of them dies of the strain, she just dies. The obituary notice of her as the wife of so-and-so never tells how she just "gave out," having borne eight children and having done the cooking, washing, ironing, and sewing for the family, ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... front, the housemaid answered merely by moving sighs. The laundress reasoned from past experience that the font had gone dry, and suddenly remembered that she was promised to help with the Bowers's heavy ironing. This was at a ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... Millicent, and leading him to the hall, she directed him to a room which had at one time been fitted as a laundry, and in which was an ironing bench. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... was the ironing board placed across the seats of two chairs in front of a table, and on the table back of this ironing board counter the different ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... rent and many a rag; many a seam and many a patch; many a soil and many a stain. And then also you will be found walking abroad in comeliness and at liberty, while others, less careful, are at home mending and washing and ironing because they went without a girdle when you girt up your garments well off the ground. Wherefore always gird well up the loins ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... ironing day, and a hot fire still burned in the empty kitchen, for the maids were upstairs resting. Nan put a slender poker to heat, and as she sat waiting for it, covered her face with her hands, asking help in this sudden need for strength, courage, and wisdom; for there was ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... on a piece of soft flannel, ironing on the wrong side. If flannel is not at hand, try an ...
— Things Mother Used To Make • Lydia Maria Gurney
... woman she was—who when she noticed that her husband's temper was causing him annoyance, took pains to help him to get rid of it. To relieve his sufferings I have known her search the house for a last month's morning paper and, ironing it smooth, lay it warm and neatly folded on his ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... they are! At work, cheerfully and briskly, at ten o'clock at night. Huge piles of linen and under-clothing disposed in baskets about the room, near the different ironers. Those at work dampening and ironing—peculiar processes both. A bowl of water is standing at the ironer's side, as in ordinary laundries, but used very differently. Instead of dipping the fingers in the water, and then snapping them over the clothes, the operator ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... closed, and dealers and hotel-keepers are to get rid of their coffee supplies in four weeks. It is only permitted to obtain from the outside coffee for one's own consumption in lots of fifty pounds. House fathers and mothers shall not allow their work people, especially their washing and ironing women, to prepare coffee, or to allow it in any manner under a penalty of ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... narrow corridor, down which we blindly felt our way, and at the extreme end of which were hung dark red plush curtains, as if before a shrine. We pulled aside these trappings of gloom, and there were two iron cots, not over a foot and a half wide, about the shape and feeling of an ironing-board, covered with what appeared to be gray army blankets, I looked to see "U.S." stamped on them. I have seen them in ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... Whatever may once have been the attractive force of the California gold fields, washing soiled linen can hardly be regarded as satisfying a national instinct, or thumping through the long hours of the night upon an ironing table a soul-filling amusement. Much may be said of "the golden fleece," but these are no modern Argonauts. They are money-making as our friends the Jews, but no "high emprise" or "grand endeavor" fires their calm pulse, and much as has been ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... being a stranger, I shall be in nobody's way,' said Miss Tox, 'and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs Richards will do her mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever it is, without minding me: and you'll smoke your pipe, too, if you're so disposed, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... little shop where the proprietress was too much concerned in cooking her dinner (it smelled delicious) to mind our wish for a very cheap green vase, inestimably Spanish after we got it home. However, in another shop where the lady was ironing her week's wash on the counter, a lady friend who was making her an afternoon call got such a vase down for us and transacted the negotiation out of pure good will for ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... We are dining early to-day, and having nothing but cold meat, in order that the servants may get on with their ironing; and yet, of course, we must ask him to dinner—Edith's brother-in-law and all. And your papa is in such low spirits this morning about something—I don't know what. I went into the study just now, and he had his face on the table, covering it with his hands. I told him I was sure Helstone ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... garrulous little stepmother's good opinion was dear to her. She would seal it up again and forward it on herself; it would reach her at home a day after her own arrival. Yes, thought Blanche, everything would dovetail excellently. She went into the kitchen where Mrs. Penticost was ironing and the pleasant smell of warm ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the good people of Bethany imagined. As a matter of fact, a more corrupt Chinaman had never been smuggled into America. Ostensibly in the laundry business, and really a master workman in that line, the astute Chink had long since relinquished the labor over the tubs and ironing-board to Hop Wah, his silent partner. Ah Moy's chief interest in the establishment lay in its cavernous sub-cellar, where he conducted gaming tables and a smoking-'parlor' with flattering success. The gods evidently smiled upon him, for his den seemed to be unknown to the police, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... large boiler furnished hot water at all hours. The construction of this building was begun November 1st, 1918, but inability to obtain a boiler and plumbing materials deferred its completion. Three women were employed for washing and ironing, and clean clothing was available ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... glad to hear that you are to be transient from Mayfield so very soon, and was taken in by the first part of your letter.[24] Indeed, for aught I know, you may be treating me, as Slipslop says, with 'ironing' even now. I shall say nothing of the shock, which had nothing of humeur in it; as I am apt to take even a critic, and still more a friend, at his word, and never to doubt that I have been writing cursed nonsense, if they say so. There was a mental reservation in my pact ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... could rather speak to the owner of that voice than to the girl before me; so I passed her, and stood at the entrance of a room hat in hand, for this side-door opened straight into the hall or house-place where the family sate when work was done. There was a brisk little woman of forty or so ironing some huge muslin cravats under the light of a long vine-shaded casement window. She looked at me distrustfully till I began to speak. 'My name is Paul Manning,' said I; but I saw she did not know the name. 'My mother's name was Moneypenny,' ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Cornelia, dimpling. "Well, Mury, see here, you nip round and wait upon me the best you know, and I'll give you an elegant present! I wear muslins most all the time in summer, and I can't endoor to have them mussed. You keep carrying them away and ironing them out nice and smooth, without bothering me to tell you. See! I need lots of attention; there's no getting away from that, but I'll make it worth your while. You just put your mind to it, and I guess you'll ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of any thing mysterious, we can see, by the darkening of his face, how he feels the awe of it. One of his friends, in hurrying to get his ironing done, to get ready to celebrate the new year, brought on an attack of hemorrhage of the lungs. Of course, it was necessary to keep him entirely still, which his companions knew; but, at the same time, they were so afraid that he might die where he was, that they ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... the corner stirred again; And the carved dog, curled in his arms, awoke, Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke. It piled in a maze round the ironing-place, And there on the snowy table wide Stood a Chinese lady of high degree, With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face.... Yet she put away all form and pride, And laid her glimmering veil aside With a childlike smile for Chang ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... with her search, Lucy returned to the house, and there found Deborah ironing at the long table in the hall, and crooning away her one dismal song of "Barbara ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Charles came down with the dinner things about half-past nine, and said he was not wanted upstairs any more. Charles went to bed shortly afterwards—he sleeps in one of the two rooms off the kitchen. I went to my own bedroom before ten, after first telling Ann, the servant, who was doing some ironing in the kitchen, to turn off the gas at the meter if the gentlemen retired before she finished, but not to bother if they were still sitting up. It had been decided that the young gentleman should occupy the bedroom next to Mr. Glenthorpe, ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... said the husband, in an undertone of amiable chiding; and the buggy gave a jerk of thankful relief as its principal burden left it for the sidewalk, diffusing the sweet smell of the ironing-table. ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... well-worn garment from the clothes-line, stretched between two dogwood forks, and having, after a keen glance down the path through the bushes, satisfied herself that no one was in sight, she returned to the house, and the baby's voice rose louder than before. The mother, as she set out her ironing table, raised a dirge-like hymn, which she chanted, partly from habit and partly in self-defence. She ironed carefully the ragged shirt she had just taken from the line, and then, after some search, finding a needle and cotton, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... was quite simple, and for that reason doubly effective. She sat down in Mrs. Simmons's kitchen, where the good woman was ironing, and said: ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... and I heard her mutter, "So vulgar! so ungenteel!" However, she recovered herself, and appeared to be for some time in deep thought. At last she rose up, ordered me to fetch something extra for supper, and recommenced her ironing. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Steadman is mistaken about women not wanting to sit in Parliament. He perhaps does not know what it feels like to stand over a wash-tub—or an ironing board—or cook over a hot stove. Women who have been doing these things long would ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... with the carders in her hands, and the tailor had his iron goose, and the apprentices, one with the big scissors and the other with the ironing-board, and they all made for the wee bannock; but it was too clever for them, and dodged about the fireside until the apprentice, thinking to snap it with the big scissors, fell into the hot ashes ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... grass—and again I recall That hour we spent by the weir of the paper-mill Watching together the curving thunderous fall Of frothing amber, bemused by the roar until My mind was as blank as the speckless sheets that wound On the hot steel ironing-rollers perpetually turning In the humming dark rooms of the mill: all sense and discerning By the stunning and ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... Nicholas saw on a chair a large woolen coverlet, which was used for the ironing-table; he seized it, and adroitly threw it over the head of Francois, who, in spite of all his efforts, finding himself entangled in its thick folds, could make no use of his arms. Then Nicholas threw himself upon him, and, with the aid of his mother, carried him into the cellar. Amandine ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... next house, Miss Robinson liked it; but hoped she "would not ask that family o'niggers,—that would make it so vulgar;" and she took a large pinch of Scotch snuff, and waddled off to finish her ironing. Mrs. Deacon Jackson—she was a second wife, with no children—hoped that "Sally Bright would not be asked, because her father was in the State Prison for passing counterfeit money; and the example would be bad, not friendly to law and order." But as Aunt Kindly went out, she met ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... injured. He had not walked a step until he was five years of age, and would be lame always. He was now twelve—a dwarf in statue, hump-backed, weazen-faced and shrill-voiced, unsightly in all eyes but those of his parents. To them he was a miracle of precocity and beauty. His mother took in fine ironing to pay for his private tuition from a public school-teacher who lived in the neighborhood. He learned fast and eagerly. His father, at the teacher's suggestion, subscribed to a circulating library and the same kind friend selected books for the cripple's ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... upon the game, could not quite grasp the thing that troubled him. In a moment, however, he gave an inarticulate bellow, wheeled about, and rode back to the house. He threw himself from the horse almost before it stopped, and rushed into the kitchen. Val, ironing one of her ruffled white aprons, looked up quickly, turned rather pale, and then stiffened perceptibly for the conflict that ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... not know that she thought it; but it was there, all the same, a lurking, newly revived, vague, despairing sort of hope. And because it was there she spent half the day retrimming a bonnet and washing and ironing a gown to wear to the picnic; and after long and anxious pondering of the matter, she deliberately took out of her best box of artificial flowers a bunch of white heather, and added it to the bonnet trimming. ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Hospital without a thought of the unselfish women who had foregone sleep to patch jackets and sew on missing buttons. There were haversacks of coarse canvas for the Volunteers, finished and partly made, with ammunition-pouches and bandoliers. And Sister Tobias stood ironing at the deal table, partly screened by a line of drying linen, while Sister Mary-Joseph turned the mangle, and the little brisk novice, her round cheeks no longer rosy, folded with active hands. The Dop Doctor's keen quick glance took note of the patient cheerful weariness written on the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... she made a living working in the field by the day and as she grew older, washing and ironing, sewing, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... orphanage, she went into a pastor's family as Stuetze der Hausfrau. These Stuetze, or supports, are common in middle-class German families, where they support the mistress of the house in all her manifold duties, cooking, baking, mending, ironing, teaching or amusing the children—being in short a comfort and blessing to harassed mothers. But Fraeulein Kuhraeuber had no talent whatever for comforting mothers, and she was quickly requested to leave the busy and populous parsonage; ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... retires, and again, and yet again, advances with the same announcement of his object and purpose, to which he receives similar evasive answers from Janet's parents, who successively represent her as up the stair "bleaching," "drying," and "ironing ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford |
