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Mattress   Listen
noun
Mattress  n.  
1.
A large pad stuffed with hair, moss, or other suitable soft material, and quilted or otherwise fastened, used as or in a bed, to support the human body while lying down. (Written also matress)
2.
(Hydraulic Engin.) A mass of interwoven brush, poles, etc., to protect a bank from being worn away by currents or waves.
innerspring mattress A variety of mattress (1) having springs inside to provide a flexible support; it is considered more comfortable than a stuffed mattress.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mattress" Quotes from Famous Books



... of common stained wood, furnished with a tester and flimsy mosquito bar, through the grim and smoky folds of which were visible sheets of unbleached factory muslin, an emaciated mattress, and a pair of lean pillows, which seemed quite lost in the much too large cases which covered them. The boy sighed as he took in all the dinginess and gloom, and his heart throbbed yearningly for the pleasant room which, even in adversity, ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... Ladyship is really so much afraid, why, I can make a bed for myself here. I can take the straw mattress and turn down a chair, so that I have something to lean my head against, and then I can sleep here till morning, or till his Lordship ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... better bed in Paris. Had he not himself put clean sheets on it that day?' He turned from the window, and with the hand of an expert displayed the beauties of the sparse blankets, the cotton sheets, and the mountainous double mattress. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... true: so I let Bettina come. Richard gave her some instructions at the door, and she came in and arranged things for the night, and lay down on a mattress at ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris

... better, don't you? Is that mattress comfortable? I'm going to bring you your breakfast ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... in thready clumps on the walls, and this served as a mattress to soften the rocky floor that must be their bed. And Harkness sat silent in the darkness long after the others were asleep—sat alone on guard, to think and to reach, ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... with less relish than they do the blades, which are sweeter and more nutritious. The former are much used for mattresses, being preferred to moss, as they are cleaner, and easier manufactured. When mixed with coarse cotton, and properly prepared, they will make a mattress but little inferior to curled hair: price about fifty cents per cwt. The average price of this grain may be set down at forty cents per bushel; and the yield on upland in some parts of the State may be stated at thirty ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... the windows. She took off her shoes and stockings and stretched herself in the very center of the high, white bed. How luxurious it felt to rest thus in a strange, quaint bed, with its sweet country odor of laurel lingering about the sheets and mattress! She stretched her strong limbs that ached a little. She ran her fingers through her loosened hair for a while. She looked at her round arms as she held them straight up and rubbed them one after the other, observing closely, as if it were something ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... girl take the clothes off the bed, one at a time, and put them on two chairs near the windows, being careful not to let the blankets get on the floor. She beat the pillows well, and turned the mattress up over the foot of the bed so the air could get underneath it. The white spread she kept by itself, and had Margaret help fold it up in its creases. "Nothing wrinkles more easily," she told Margaret, "and a wrinkled spread spoils the look of neatness a bed ought to have ...
— A Little Housekeeping Book for a Little Girl - Margaret's Saturday Mornings • Caroline French Benton

... for yourself," was the answer. "They were raised off the floor upon legs, so that no wind from under the door could get at them; and on the flat bottom called the bed-stock, there was placed a thick strong bag called a mattress, which was stuffed with some soft material which made it springy and pleasant to touch or lie down upon. The shape of it was a long square, or what may be called a rectangular parallelogram. I strongly advise you all to learn that word, for it is ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty

... refreshed. The mattress was hard, and in her restricted allowance of space she had to deny herself the luxury of tossing and turning lest she should arouse Debby. To open one's eyes on a new day is not pleasant when situations have to be faced. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... room on a table, covered with brocade, awaiting the coffin and the customary wreaths. The doctor rushed into the empty bedroom. Everything in it was already in order; the bed stood there, without mattress or pillows. There was nothing on ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... but not fastened, and Mr. Hillary went in at once without ceremony. A lighted candle shed its rays around the rude dwelling-room: and the first thing he saw was a young man, who did not look in the least like Pike, stretched upon a mattress; the second was a bushy black wig and appurtenances lying on a chair; and the third was a formidable-looking pistol, conveniently close to the ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... discovery of the crown might have fatal consequences. Helen, on this, observed that the king was more important than the crown, and that the best way would be to keep them together; so she wrapped up the crown in a cloth, and hid it under the mattress of his cradle, with a long spoon for mixing his pap upon the top, so, said the queen, he might take care of ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... neared the shore, to catch some wished-for countenance. She seemed disappointed and sad; when I heard a faint voice call her name.—It was from a poor sailor who had been ill all the voyage, and had excited the sympathy of every one on board. When the weather was fine, his messmates had spread a mattress for him on deck in the shade, but of late his illness had so increased that he had taken to his hammock, and only breathed a wish that he might see his wife before he died. He had been helped on deck as we came up the river, and was now leaning against the shrouds, with a countenance so wasted, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... the two friends told me that if I had any business to attend to I could go, because they would both pass the night on a mattress near ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Eucalyptus robusta. Eucalyptus viminalis. Cupressus macrocarpa (Monterey cypress). Laurestinus. Australian pea vine on the palms. Muhlenbeckia (Australian mattress vine) against the base of Machinery Palace. Honeysuckle against the base of the Varied Industries Palace. Lawson cypress. Libocedrus decurrens (incense cedar). Acacia floribunda. Acacia latifolia. Albizzia ...
— Palaces and Courts of the Exposition • Juliet James

... I took a stroll outside, for as yet I felt no inclination to go to bed, notwithstanding that a bishop had slept upon the same mattress that was waiting for me. Keeping within the convent bounds, where no woman is allowed to set her foot—that troublesome foot whose imprint may be found on most of the paths that lead to a Trappist monastery ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... of rooms that bore the number seven on their door that Mr. Magee's choice fell. A large parlor with a fireplace that a few blazing logs would cheer, a bedroom whose bed was destitute of all save mattress and springs, and a bathroom, comprised his kingdom. Here, too, all the furniture was piled in the center of the rooms. After Quimby had opened the windows, he began ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers

... lustily kissed them on both cheeks. It was a funny sight. When we got on board again after a couple of hours on shore the wind rose and we tossed about considerably. Another sleepless night on the "living" mattress in the bunk, and early in the morning we reached the Persian port ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... on a brush-heap and slept soundly. The green, yielding beech-twigs, covered with a buffalo robe, were equal to a hair mattress. The heat and smoke from a large fire kindled in the afternoon had banished every "no-see-em" from the locality, and in the morning the sun was above ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... for packing material, as a fertilizer, for manufacturing paper, for coarse cloth and mattress filling. By mixing wet machine peat with cement it may be made into blocks for paving and other construction work. The most promising uses are for fuel, as bedding for stock, as a disinfectant, in briquettes for burning ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory

... "Excelsior" mattresses, at which they cry out in disgust, are beds of down in comparison with the straw "tick" on which he and his wife sleep soundly and contentedly. He has paid $4.50 for each mattress, as a special concession to what he understands city prejudice to require. The cheap painted chamber-sets are holiday adorning by the side of the cherry and pine in the bedrooms of his family. He buys fresh meat every day ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... narrow mattress in it, and freshly covered pillows, and brought her from the waggon, and to the grave, and carried her down the light wooden ladder, and laid her in her last earthly home, with a kiss from the lips that had never been her husband's. It was so cruel to think of that. It was ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... repaired, as it was impossible that we could any of us go any longer without rest. I established Margery and the two babies in the largest bed; poor Miss —— betook herself to a sort of curtainless cot that stood in one corner; and I laid myself down on a mattress on the floor; and we soon all forgot the conveniences of a Wilmington hotel in ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... of my stiff hat and whizzed out through the legs of my thin Sunday pants till I felt for all the world like the ventilating pipe on an ice-chest. I could see why Phil was wearing the bed-clothes; what I was suffering for just then was a feather mattress on ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... forth? A convict! You call me sir! You do not address me as thou? 'Get out of here, you dog!' is what people always say to me. I felt sure that you would expel me, so I told you at once who I am. Oh, what a good woman that was who directed me hither! I am going to sup! A bed with a mattress and sheets, like the rest of the world! a bed! It is nineteen years since I have slept in a bed! You actually do not want me to go! You are good people. Besides, I have money. I will pay well. Pardon me, monsieur the inn-keeper, but what is your name? I will pay anything you ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... doubt of it. A hasty glance showed Cora that, in the absence of Inez, her hotel room had been gone over quickly, but thoroughly. A small, empty valise, which Inez had trustingly hidden under the mattress of the bed lay on the floor, open. It had contained the papers which were so precious to her. Now they were ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose

... Lyddy tightened her apron-strings about her stout waist. "Well, 'Miss Johnson,' you git holt of that mat-trass and help me meek up dis heah bed so it 'll be fit for you' mistis to sleep on it." With a jerk she turned up the mattress. The maid was so taken aback for a moment that she did not speak. Then she ...
— Mam' Lyddy's Recognition - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... wooden bed-frame suspended from the beams of a ship for the officers, between decks. It is inclosed in canvas, sewed in the form of a chest, about 6 feet long, 1 foot deep, and 2 or 3 feet wide, in which the mattress is laid. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... be two twins, one a perfect model, the other what Mrs. Lynde calls a 'holy terror.' There will be a little room upstairs over the porch, where old dreams hang thick, and a big, fat, glorious feather bed which will almost seem the height of luxury after a boardinghouse mattress. How do you like my ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... top towards the feet, swelling slightly in the middle; others, perfectly flat: a good housemaid will accommodate each bed to the taste of the sleeper, taking care to shake, beat, and turn it well in the process. Some persons prefer sleeping on the mattress; in which case a feather bed is usually beneath, resting on a second mattress, and a straw paillasse at the bottom. In this case, the mattresses should change places daily; the feather bed placed on the mattress ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... about her death. The room they gave her was the cell of a mad nun who made everything filthy. In the nun's old straw, in the midst of a frightful stench, she lay. Her kinsmen on the morrow had much ado to get in a coverlet and mattress for her use. For her nurse and keeper she was allowed a poor tool of Girard's, a lay-sister, daughter to that very Guiol who had betrayed her; a girl right worthy of her mother, capable of any wickedness, a source of danger to her modesty, perhaps even to her life. ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... the darkness, he discovered that Goat's bed was still supplied with mattress and crumpled blankets. This surprised him somewhat, as any item of cloth on Mars had to be imported from Earth and was far too valuable to abandon. But, apparently, these things had been left temporarily in Goat's abandonment of Ultra ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... than three years after he had been left alone, he was lying on his well-worn mattress, smoking his evening pipe, when there came on the air far out to sea a ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... corn-husks in the mattress underneath Was to me a ghostly whisper muttered through a phantom's teeth, And the mice behind the wainscot, as they scampered round about, Filled my soul with speechless horror when I'd put the candle out. So I'm deeply sympathetic when some story I have read Of ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln

... all appearance of newness from the hole he had made, carefully cleaning up the chips and putting them in his pocket. Finally he concealed the brace and bit and opened the trap, disclosing the rough stones of the ballast. I watched him in amazement as he tore a mattress from an adjoining bunk and forced it through the opening, spreading it fore and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... middle planks; the ordinary question was with four wedges, the extraordinary with eight. At the third wedge Lachaussee said he was ready to speak; so the question was stopped, and he was carried into the choir of the chapel stretched on a mattress, where, in a weak voice—for he could hardly speak—he begged for half an hour to recover himself. We give a verbatim extract from the report of the question and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... of fifteen minutes, that breathless swing toward the floor, the mattress rising after her with scarcely a whisper and her two bare feet landing patly into the pale-blue room slippers, ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... discovered that you were sinking you had thrown yourself sideways, and started to crawl or roll, regardless of how wet you got, you might have made it, for in that way you'd have presented more of your body to the action of the sand. Then a mattress could be made from branches, weeds or any old thing, that would bear the weight of one or two of us. But I've got even a better scheme than that ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie

... quiet now, sir; I hope he aren't hatching any noo tricks again' us. Tell you what it is; I'm going down to him to-morrow with a mattress to see if I can't smother him down till I've got his shooting irons away. We shan't feel safe till that's done. My word! I should like to chain him up in the cable tier till we could hand him over ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn

... over this scene of devastation, his attention was drawn by Mrs. Sheppard towards an appalling object in one corner. This was the body of a man, apparently lifeless, and stretched upon a mattress, with his head bound up in a linen cloth, through which the blood had oosed. Near the body, which, it will be surmised, was that of Abraham Mendez, two ruffianly personages were seated, quietly smoking, and bestowing no sort of attention upon the new-comers. Their conversation was conducted ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... water, and a pullet occasionally with much difficulty; and my fever increased to such a degree that I became delirious. All my domestics were attacked soon after with the same fever, the priest Stephen only excepted, who had to take care of us all. My only bed was a wretched mattress, which had been lent me by a person named John Volcan; and my life was despaired of by every one, till the 9th of September, when, by the cares of Stephen and of Martha, my good hostess, or rather through the mercy of God, the fever ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... wood cut in the forest than he could haul with Ben's help, and doubtless this poor man would be glad of the job. Mother said the room could be made ready, she thought, inasmuch as there was an extra high-post bedstead in our attic chamber. Aunt Hilda added, "I've got a good feather mattress to put on it, and a straw-bed is ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell

... not sleep. The bunk in the little cabin was comfortable enough for anyone, but to him it was a couch for an emperor. He speculated on the probability of George the Third's having had anything like so luxurious a bed, and rejected the thought as absurd. There were no lumps in the mattress, neither any holes through which sharp fingers of straw came out and scratched him. The red curtains at the sides could be drawn at will, and, drawing them, he found himself in a little world of his own, warm and still and red. The shells were outside ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards

... from dinner-time till the bugle rings for evening stables. Will you believe it, that the commonest way of spending the afternoon in cavalry regiments is by going to bed? Immediately after dinner is over, down go the beds with a clatter, the strap that holds the mattress doubled-up is unbuckled, and under the thick sheets and the dark blankets, minus his boots, the trooper smokes his pipe until he falls asleep. Their officer is with them in the morning, to see that they ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie

... fever returns, in which event the whole process of applying cold water must be repeated. The simplest way of reducing the fever consists in laying the patient, entirely nude, on a canvas cot or wire mattress, binding ice to the back of his neck, and having an attendant stand on a chair near by and pour ice water upon the patient from a garden ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... cabin and slept in his bunk. Long ago, in the world that was slowly coming back to her, the idea of sleeping in the bunk of a Chinaman she had seen killed would have revolted her, now, it did not trouble her at all. She only knew that a mattress and clean sheets were heaven, even if she had to sleep with a revolver under her pillow. Then in a day or two she only put the revolver there as a matter of routine. The "Chinks" gave evidence that so far from making trouble they were extremely anxious to propitiate and please, ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... pass a native "camp" under an overhanging rock: it consists of a few parallel sticks, on which the native sleeps as well as any European on a spring-mattress, and a hollow in the ground, with a number ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... the poor man tell who was to occupy the berth! You might have been a fat old lady for anything he knew!" replied Mrs. Beverley, settling herself on the mattress below. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... saddle, pannel[obs3], pillion; side saddle, pack saddle; pommel. bed, berth, pallet, tester, crib, cot, hammock, shakedown, trucklebed[obs3], cradle, litter, stretcher, bedstead; four poster, French bed, bunk, kip, palang[obs3]; bedding, bichhona, mattress, paillasse[obs3]; pillow, bolster; mat, rug, cushion. footstool, hassock; tabouret[obs3]; tripod, monopod. Atlas, Persides, Atlantes[obs3], Caryatides, Hercules. V. be supported &c.; lie on, sit on, recline on, lean ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... the door and O'Malley shoved into the room close behind him. They stood looking at Sim's bunk. The straw ticking of the mattress had been slit open and some of the straw was scattered on the floor. Sim was not in the room. Stan walked over to a little table. One small light bulb was flooding the ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery

... mattress-cushioned sofa; and with no one to see or hear, she murmured in his ear, "Dear angel, they did not understand you; but, 'Thy songs are sweet, I ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... old mattress, I believe," said Crandall, yawning. "Same old everything. Oh, but I'm lame! I'd no notion you chaps could play like this." He caressed a battered shin. "You've given us all something to remember ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... Genoa are delighted to secure an American party, because Americans so much wonder, and deal so much in sentiment and emotion before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there fidgeted about as if he had swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation,—full ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... humpy. Hemlock is smoother and more flexible; but the spring soon wears out of it. The balsam-fir, with its elastic branches and thick flat needles, is the best of all. A bed of these boughs a foot deep is softer than a mattress and as fragrant as a thousand Christmas-trees. Two things more are needed for the ideal camp-ground—an open situation, where the breeze will drive away the flies and mosquitoes, and an abundance of dry firewood within easy reach. ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... no more, but followed Anthony, who made a dash through the further room, and into another. There, on a mattress, crouched two forlorn figures, veiled as if in haste, and muffled in black satin habberahs such as Turkish ladies wear ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... carriage driven up as close as possible. I brought a small mattress, and think the ride will not be very painful. What splendid eyes she has! Poor little thing! Of course you will come and prescribe for her, and I will see that she is carefully nursed until she is quite well again. Here, Henry, you and Richard ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... wasting any of such precious time, but he would not hear of my sitting up. I had just lain down with my clothes on—for there was no blanket, and the floor was damp tiles. I heard him call to his servant, who slept at the end of his room on a mattress. I jumped up and went to him, and did not leave him again. He wanted some drink, which I gave him, and then sat down beside him. He slept and woke every half-hour. He was not restless, nor had he any pain, but he ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey

... boarding-house. My uncle was to supply also my bedding, the academy being provided with bedsteads; but he was a heedless man, and I remember that I had to sleep six weeks on the bed-cords, with my wearing apparel as my only covering, before he awoke to the fact that I had a prepaid claim on him for mattress and bedding. But we were on the edge of a great forest, and in the almost primeval woodland I found compensation for many discomforts, and what time my tasks spared me was spent wandering there. The persistent apathy which had oppressed ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... himself on his truckle bedstead, upon which merely a rude straw mattress, covered with a blanket, was thrown, and which, for aught he knew, had been occupied by a thousand prisoners before him; but, however bitter and sarcastic his mind might be, it was not given to despond; and he soon began to reflect ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... It was one large room, barely furnished. Upon one side straw was thickly littered down—for in those days beds among the common people were unknown. In a sort of alcove at the end was a couch with a rough mattress and coverlet. This Cuthbert took possession of, while his followers stretched themselves ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... must rest," said Gneisenau, with the tenderness of a son. "You must change your dress, take food, and repose on your laurels, though there is but a straw mattress for you." ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... left it at the camp, and we made our beds apparently dry. But I did not sleep well. I could not help thinking that it was not safe to sleep in a bed with a substratum of wet mattress, and I worried Euphemia a little by asking her several times if she felt ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton

... carefully avoided. Feather-beds should not be employed when possible to find a harder bed; the floor, with a single folded blanket beneath the sleeper, would be preferable. Soft pillows heat the head, as soft beds produce heat in other parts. A hair mattress, or a bed of corn husks, oat straw, or excelsior—covered with two or three blankets or a quilted cotton mattress—makes a ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... fans, chairs, and round white marble table, all the pieces placed in solitude, so as to convey the notion of lonesomeness. The great feature is the bed. The bedstead is about the usual thing, save that there is no provision for a possible or impossible spring mattress, or anything of that nature. The bed space is covered with bamboo, platted. It is hard as iron, and I can testify of considerable strength, for I rested my two hundred pounds, and rising a few pounds, on this surface, with no protection for it or myself for several nights, and there were no ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... study, though he might easily have commanded one more light, airy, and in every way more suitable; and chose for his sleeping chamber an attic which he shared with a younger brother. The furniture of the latter might have answered for the cell of an anchorite, and consisted of a hard mattress on a cot-bedstead, plain wooden chairs and table, with matting on the floor. It was without fire, and to cold he was throughout life extremely sensitive; but he never complained or appeared in any way to be conscious of inconvenience. 'I recollect,' says his brother, 'after one most severe night, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... a low-ceilinged room, or pen, sparsely lighted by wax candles. The first object which caught my attention was a youthful Russian soldier, almost a child, lying on a straw mattress, smiling as if asleep. I approached; I put my hand on his forehead ... ice-cold— dead. Some of the men approached to take off the clothing; others stood around in a half-circle, silently looking on. Suddenly there was a murmur... ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... promise to the lads, though not exactly as they desired. A mattress was brought them, and a coarse and not over-clean covering; food also on a trencher, and a mug of ale was sent in, but the food was badly cooked, and the ale was none of the best. There was, however, a sufficiency to satisfy hunger and thirst; and they hoped for little more than ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... clean straw stuffed into a leathern case. The first thing his valets did on being shown their master's bedroom in Windsor Castle was to send out for a truss of straw for the Emperor's bed. The last thing got for him at Woolwich was the same simple stuffing for his rude mattress. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... where the lapping dog Barks at the incoming wave, Drifting spray on the bloom Of the sand-sprawling ili-au And the scarlet flower of ohai, 15 On the wind-woven mat of wild grass, Long naku, a springy mattress. The spout-horn, Kawelo-hea, Asks, Who of right has the tabu? The princess Nahi-ena-ena! 20 The flowers glow in the pool, ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... and his assistant had retired and shoved in the outside bolts, Jack lit his candle and a cigarette, feeling almost happy. He surveyed the premises now with more care. The bed was of iron and fastened to the floor. On the top of it was a mattress, a pillow, and a pair of blankets. At its head a little triangular shelf of rock had been left in the corner, and on this reposed a basin of tin, while a coarse piece of sacking took the place of a towel. ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... he wrote one morning in his journal: 'I said, when I awoke, after some more sleepings and wakings I shall lie on this mattress sick; then dead; and through my gay entry they will carry these bones. Where shall I be then? I lifted my head and beheld the spotless orange light of the morning streaming up from the dark hills into ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... think. At present I could only see—see what? At one moment a squalid attic, the starlight shining through patched window-panes upon a lonely mattress, on which a starving girl was lying; at another moment a cellar damp and dark, in one corner of which a youthful figure was crouching; and then (most intolerable of all!) a flaring gin-palace, where, among a noisy crowd, a face was looking wistfully on, while coarse and vulgar men were clustering ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... been taken to the Bargello. The only other bronze here is the work of Donatello—a Judith and Holofernes, under the arch towards the Uffizi. It is Donatello's only large bronze group, and was probably designed for the centre piece of a fountain, the mattress on which Holofernes has fallen having little spouts for water. Judith stands over her victim, who is already dead, her sword lifted to strike again; and you may see by her face that she will strike if it be necessary. Beneath you read—"Exemplum salut. publ. ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... Senator reclining upon his mattress, to enjoy that profound slumber which is the portion of just men and travellers; while we accompany Don Estevan into the hut which he had chosen for himself, and which stood at some distance from that ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... Mouche, the other day as I lay here, Slightly propped up upon this mattress-grave In which I've been interred these few eight years, I saw a dog, a little pampered slave, Running about and barking. I would have given Heaven could I have been that dog; to thrive Like him, so senseless—and so much alive! And once I called myself a blithe Hellene, ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... I had need of coolness it was now; the slightest mistake would be fatal! The keys had slipped from the mattress of the divan, and now lay just beyond reach of my fingers. Rapidly I changed my position, and sought, without undue noise, to move the ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... intense heat as well as I could by taking the mattress from the bed and erecting it as a bulwark before the window, with only enough space reserved on the top so as to look out, I anxiously observed the animals in the opposite room. Immediately opposite the window through which I gazed was a large cage containing a lion and lioness. To the right ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... on the floor, on a thin cotton mattress, which is unfolded and laid out over our white mats. Chrysantheme's pillow is a little wooden block, scooped out to fit exactly the nape of the neck, without disturbing the elaborate head-dress, which must never be taken down; the pretty black hair I shall probably never ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... barred windows that gave into a blind courtyard, of which there had been no indication heretofore, either outside or inside the castle. Broken glass crunched under our feet, and I saw that the floor was strewn with wine bottles whose necks had been snapped off to save the pulling of the cork. On a mattress at the farther end of the room lay a man with gray hair, and shaggy, unkempt iron-gray beard. He seemed either asleep or dead, but when I turned my electric light full on his face he proved to be still alive, for he rubbed his eyes languidly, ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... ventilation, either by the windows, doors, or flues, or by all. Next, a comfortable bed, of almost any material, except cotton and feathers, though the latter might be indulged in during the severest season; but it is better to dispense with them in toto, and use instead a mattress of hair, husk, moss, or straw. These even should be frequently aired, but only upon bright sunny days, and occasionally changed altogether for new material. In place of heavy cotton counterpanes use woollen blankets ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... bronze Venus in a leaning posture; a large couch or sofa completed the furniture. In the hall stood half a dozen English cane chairs, and an empty book-case: there were no mirrors, nor a single painting. The bedchamber had merely a large mattress spread on the floor, with two stuffed cotton quilts and a pillow—the common bed throughout Greece. In the sitting-room we observed a marble recess, formerly, the old man told us, filled with books and papers, which were then in a large seaman's chest in the closet: it was open, but ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori

... I had a room with bath. The bath was at the stream some fifty yards away, but such discrepancies are minor affairs in the midst of such big elemental things as were all about me. My mattress was of young cherry shoots, and never did king have a more royal bed, or ever such refreshing sleep. And, while I slept, I grew inside, for the soft music of the pines lulled me to rest, and the subdued rippling of my bath-stream seemed to wash my soul clean. When I arose I had no bad taste in ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... one window high up over the water; there was an iron bolt on the door, and the walls of bare logs were solid. Waring stood his gun in one corner, and laid his pistols by the side of the bed,—for there was a bed, only a rude framework like a low-down shelf, but covered with mattress and sheets none the less,—and his weary body longed for those luxuries with a longing that only the wilderness can give,—the wilderness with its beds of boughs, and no undressing. The bolt and the ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... is the —nd Field Company," replied a fair-moustached sapper captain, who was lying on a mattress in the room from which the light came, reading a book of O. ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... and crowded, for Mr. Downs had brought down a mattress from upstairs, and made a bed on the floor, upon which Eyebright's "man" was now sleeping. His wet clothes had been changed for some dry ones belonging to Mr. Bright, and, altogether, he looked far less wild and forlorn than he ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge

... public square, in the cool of the morning, and frequent excursions in ferry or steam-boats, would often save a long bill for medical attendance. In hot nights, the windows should be kept open, and the infant laid on a mattress, or on folded blankets. A bit of straw matting, laid over a featherbed, and covered with the under sheet, makes a very cool ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... centre of the room, engaged in writing in the book of gold. In the second scene, the angel stands at the foot of the couch, and holds the book towards Ben Adhem for him to read the names written therein. The couch can be formed by placing a small mattress on a few low boxes, and covering the whole with bed clothes, on the outside of which should be a white quilt. It must be placed in the foreground, at the right of the stage. Place a plaster pedestal ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... If it is low, four-inch blocks should be placed under each leg, the casters having been removed to prevent slipping. The bed should be so placed that it can be reached from either side by the nurse and physician. The mattress may be reenforced by the placing of a board under it if there is a tendency to sag in the middle. Over this mattress is securely pinned the strip of rubber sheeting or table oilcloth. A clean sheet covers mattress and rubber cloth and at the spot where the hips are to lie may be ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... gone but for you," she averred. "The money's Jennie's, which is the same as I had it and under the mattress, and ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans

... isn't it just too lovely to be at home!" she cried as she skipped about. "No lights out at nine, no prayers, no getting up at six o'clock and turning your mattress and washing in a sloppy little washroom. Oh, I'm so happy! I can't realize it's all true." As she spoke she raised herself on her toes so that she could see her face in the mirror over the mantel. "Why, do you know, sister," she rattled on, her eyes studying her own face, "that Miss Sarah used ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... moving she had wheedled the landlord into allowing her to cut off a small space from her room for a private bath and kitchenette, built a box couch across the window large enough for a three-quarter mattress and covered it with velour. For five dollars a week she had thus secured a little home in which was combined a ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... curtains. They seemed to be secure. All the same, there was danger. I was going perhaps to receive a cold shower-bath from overhead, or perhaps, the moment I stretched myself out, to find myself sinking under the floor with my mattress. I searched in my memory for all the practical jokes of which I ever had experience. And I did not want to be caught. Ah! certainly not! certainly not! Then I suddenly bethought myself of a precaution which I consider one of ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... ere the roused passions of the riffraff had assuaged themselves by loot and outrage in the remoter streets, in the darkest dungeon of the Nona Tower, on a piece of rotten mattress, huddled in his dripping tinselled cloak, and bleeding from a dozen cuts, Joseph the Dreamer lay prostrate, too exhausted from the fierce struggle with his captors to think on the stake ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... into bed, and rolling over on the nubbly mattress and creaky springs, she almost wished that it had been a feather bed. But she was soon asleep, and thought no more about ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... what sticks they bought? I will tell you. They bought a rusty old bedstead, very big, with laths that hung loose like a hammock, and all its knobs gone and only bare screws sticking up spikily. Also a flock mattress and pillows of a dull dust color to go on the bed, and some blankets and sheets, all matching the mattress to a shade. They bought a table and two chairs, and a kitchen fender with a round steel moon—only it was very rusty—and a hand-bowl for the sink, and a small ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit

... the room was a stone sarcophagus of the early, broad, flat-topped pattern. In one corner was a two-seated bari, in another a mattress of woven reeds. Leaning against the sarcophagus was a wooden rack containing several earthenware amphorae; on the floor about it was a touseled litter of waxed outer cerements torn from mummies. All these things they observed later. Now their wide eyes were fixed on the top of the coffin. At ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... everywhere. But if her search had at first proved fruitless, there was that in her excitement and attitude which led me to believe that she had found the mysterious documents at last. I glanced at the bed, and professional instinct told me all that had happened. The mattress had been flung contemptuously down by the bedside, and across it, face downwards, lay the body of the Count, like one of the paper envelopes that strewed the carpet—he too was nothing now but an envelope. There was something grotesquely horrible ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac

... supplemented by further purchases, they were, considering the circumstances, not at all badly off in this respect. The tables and straw-bottomed chairs were indeed no better than those one finds in the cottages of peasants; the sofa of white wood with cushions of mattress cloth stuffed with wool could only ironically be called "voluptuous"; and the large yellow leather trunks, whatever their ornamental properties might be, must have made but poor substitutes for wardrobes. The folding-beds, on the other hand, proved irreproachable; ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... structure; the girls showed the process of ironing a shirt, of cleaning and lighting a lamp, of making bread, cake and pie, of cutting and fitting a dress, and so on. Other boys illustrated wheelwrighting, bricklaying, plastering, mattress-making, printing, and various agricultural processes. To the crowds of interested negroes at this commencement this seemed something worth while, because it was practical and within the range of their own experience and attainment.... Among all the educational ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike

... if he had just risen from the dead, and reminding me of a picture I once saw depicting the raising of Lazarus. His eyes were rolling, too, in wild delirium, and after gazing at us fixedly for a second or two without a sign of recognition on his pallid face, he fell back prostrate again on the mattress, crying out in a pitiful wail, "Alas, for the ship! Too ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... where the thousand-legs can get you—and if they get you, you die. You want to live right. Now listen to me; I got the best brass bed ever a king slept on. Double thickness, heavy brass bed, looks like solid gold. Springs that would hold the schooner, double-thick mattress, sheets and pillows all embroidered like it belonged to a duchess. Fellow was going to be married that I brought it for, but now he's lying up there in Calvary in a bed they dug for him. I'll let you have it cheap—three ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... floors and staircases; to dust the bedrooms, and clean the grates; and while her sisters occupied carpeted chambers hung with mirrors, where they could see themselves from head to foot, this poor little damsel was sent to sleep in an attic, on an old straw mattress, with only one chair and not a looking-glass in ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... whom they were surrounded as greatly their inferiors: yet they dwelt in two rooms, one above the other, with a ladder as the only means of communication. Their best bed, on which Isel and Flemild slept, was a rough wooden box filled with straw, on the top of which were a bed and a mattress, covered by coarse quilts and a rug of rabbit-skin. Derette and the boys lay on sacks filled with chaff, with woollen ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... the garret, upon a wretched straw mattress, whilst the bed-chambers of her sisters were furnished with every luxury and elegance, and provided with mirrors, in which they could survey themselves from head to foot. The amiable creature bore this ill treatment with patience, and did not venture to complain to her father, who ...
— Little Cinderella • Anonymous

... wretched man desired to rule the world and failed to rule his own household. What was the result of this neglect? He beheld his nephew, his adopted child, his son-in-law, perish in the flower of youth, his grandson reduced to eat the stuffing of his mattress to prolong his wretched existence for a few hours; his daughter and his granddaughter, after they had covered him with infamy, died, the one of hunger and want on a desert island, the other in prison by the hand of a common ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... This is just the method of the simple and sensible Germans, who never wait for elegant upholstery. A pair of plain parallel bars, a movable vaulting-bar, a wooden horse, a spring-board, an old mattress to break the fall, a few settees where sweethearts and wives may sit with their knitting as spectators, and there is a Turnhalle complete,—to be henceforward filled, two or three nights in every week, with cheery German faces, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... pallet, in a recess adjoining to the kitchen, and, unaffected by his change of dwelling, slept fast and deep. Alice had less quiet rest in old Goody Jellycot's wicker couch, in the inner apartment; while the dame and Phoebe slept on a mattress, stuffed with dry leaves, in the same chamber, soundly as those whose daily toil gains their daily bread, and, whom morning calls up only to renew ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... would have necessitated two bearers, that is to say, there would have been two guns less for defence if an attack was made on the road. Would they not, on the contrary, by employing the cart leave every arm free? Was it impossible to place the mattress on which Herbert was lying in it, and to advance with so much care than any jolt should be avoided? It ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... open the veil in which she was wrapped and showed her hidden charms. At this sight, desire stirred in Bedreddin, and he rose and put off his clothes. The purse of a thousand dinars he had received of the Jew he wrapped in his trousers and laid them under the mattress; then took off his turban and hung it on the settle, remaining in a skull-cap and shirt of fine silk, laced with gold. With this arose the Lady of Beauty and drew him to her, and he did the like with her. Then he took her to his embrace and pointing the engine that batters down the fortalice of virginity, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... long dark night, filled with shapeless images, Esther woke at last. She believed herself in her comfortable bed at the Villa Firenze, and for a brief moment she wondered at the hardness of the mattress beneath her. Next she was aware that her head throbbed dully and that her mouth felt dry and harsh. She swallowed several times. Was she ill? Had anything happened? Then followed the discovery that she was fully ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... Miss Mehitable energetically beat a mattress until no more dust rose from it. With Araminta's aid she carried it upstairs and put it in place. "I'm goin' home now after my dinner and Evelina's," said Miss Hitty, "and when I come back I'll bring sheets and quilts for this. You clean till I come back, and then ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... upon a mattress improvised from materials sought out and brought together from no one knew where but the earnest sympathizing woman who ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... Lorenzino, who still lay upon his victim's body, and Scoronconcolo could not strike for fear of wounding his master. Between the writhing couple he made, however, several passes with his sword, which only pierced the mattress. Then he drew a knife and drove it into the Duke's throat, and bored about till he had severed ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... to get more of a mattress?" he said. "But suppose you wanted to keep warm in really cold weather, in a snowstorm, say. Which side of the ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... thirties he suffered often from headaches and afflictions of the eyes; in the middle of the forties paralysis of the spinal cord began to manifest itself; and for the last ten years of his life he was a hopelessly stricken invalid, finally doomed for five years to that "mattress grave" which his fortitude no less than his woeful humor has pathetically glorified. His wife cared for him dutifully, he was visited by many distinguished men of letters, and in 1855 a ministering angel came to him in the person of Elise ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... the letter into his pocket, and drawing a mattress before the door of the loose-box, went fast asleep on it till dawn, when he called a sleepy stable-boy from the rooms above and bade him ride over with the ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue

... vague to know, A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; And he, exploring fifty feet below The rosy gloom ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon

... the room as he said the words. Even in broad daylight, I could see that he glanced round him with apprehension. He was shaking quite visibly. The room was decidedly old-fashioned, but the greater part of the furniture was modern. The bed was an Albert one with a spring mattress, and light, cheerful dimity hangings. The windows were French—they were wide open, and let in the soft, pleasant air, for the day was truly a spring one in winter. The paper on ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes

... soldiers shot down through the gratings. Some citizens were shot on opening the doors, others in endeavoring to escape. Among other persons whose houses were burned was an old man of 90 lying dangerously ill, who was taken out on his mattress and left lying in his garden all night. He died shortly after in the hospital to which a friend took ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... coal-scuttle on top of the chair, I blew out the evil-smelling lamp and crept with fear and trembling into a most inhospitable-looking bed. It received my slight weight with a groan, and creaked dismally every time I stirred. Through the thin mattress I could feel the slats, that seemed hard bands of pain across ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... the Egyptian cat from its nest under his mattress and put it into the inner pocket of his coat. "Couldn't leave our pal, could we? ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... passed a more uncomfortable one, Mrs. Fogleplug. That is one of the things I wished to speak to you about. After being accustomed as I have to a spring mattress, all those great feather beds made it simply impossible to ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... not had a sleepless time that hot June night it probably would never have happened. As it was, after tossing and pitching on an uncomfortably warm mattress for several hours, he had dressed himself and left his Bolton-avenue home for a stroll in Druid Hill Park just as the dawn made itself evident. That was the beginning of ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... regimental, brigade, and division hospitals somewhat. Few at home realize that these are merely tents, and sometimes very poor ones, the wounded lying on the ground, lucky if their blanket is spread on a layer of pine or hemlock twigs, or some leaves. No cots; seldom even a mattress on the ground. It is pretty cold. I go around from one case to another. I do not see that I can do any good, but I cannot leave them. Once in a while some youngster holds on to me convulsively, and I do what I ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... was Natura obliged to take up his lodging:—he lay down, indeed, on the ragged dirty mattress, but durst not take off his cloaths, so noisome was every thing about him:—fatigued as he was, he could not close his eyes till towards day, but had not slept above two hours before the peasant who had served him as a guide, and had also stayed at the inn, ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... not cry now, her tears all came when she was alone, and when Mary said something of being so sorry for her headache, she said, "Oh! it's only with knocking one's head against a mattress like mad people," in such a matter-of-fact voice, that Mary for a moment wondered whether she had really ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... fatigued, this information was rather welcome than otherwise. I had full confidence in my own courage; and if anything should happen, it would make a capital story for my first New-York supper. I saw there was but one bed, and a small straw mattress on the floor beside it for the boy, and therefore declared that I should sleep on the bench, wrapped in my cloak. Neither objected to this, and they presently retired. I determined, however, to keep awake as long as possible. I threw a fresh log on the fire, lit another cigar, made a few entries ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... of a 'urry, Miss Esther. I reckon you wouldn't feel so pleased if you'd got to do it," added Anna, laughing. "I'll give you the duster and brush in a minute. You lend me a hand with this, if you will," turning the mattress on Poppy's bed, "and I'll be ready in half the time; it's ever so much quicker done if there's two at it; you see, when one's alone, one wastes so much time running round ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... open, and Anna, tear-stained and sobbing, threw herself into the room and, hurling herself to the bed, flung herself at his feet, which, owing to his immensity of stature, were protruding slightly over the end of the mattress. 'Take me with you!' she cried repeatedly. 'No, no, no!' replied the Tsar, equally repeatedly. At length, worn out by her pleading, the poor woman fell asleep. It was dawn when the Tsar, stepping over her recumbent form, bade ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... morning Mike went to work again. He showed Thompson how to arrange a mattress of hemlock boughs on the bed frame. It was a simple enough makeshift, soft and springy when Thompson spread his bedding over it. Then Mike superintended the final disposition of his supplies so that there would be some semblance of order instead of an indiscriminately mixed ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... touched empty air, and she found herself resting on a hard and narrow mattress, while her eyes, growing accustomed to the feeble light, showed her the bare stone wall of a narrow chamber like a dungeon, whose only ventilation came from narrow slits ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... and frisking under the lash of the alcohol, and fancy himself thrashing his wife, till a sudden frenzy of rage would overcome him, and he would shake all over, rolling upon the bed and biting the mattress. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... along the front from Nieuport to Dixmude. Mrs. Knocker established one thirty yards behind the front line of trenches at Pervyse. Miss Chisholm and I joined her. In its cellar we found a rough bedstead of two pieces of unplaned lumber, with clean straw for a mattress, awaiting us. Any Englishwoman is respected in the Belgian lines. The two soldiers who had been living in our room had given it up cheerily. They had searched the village for a clean sheet, and showed it to us with pride. They lumped the straw for our pillows, ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... the edge of the bed, in default of the one unbroken chair which their host kept for himself, as easier than a mattress to get up from suddenly, did not take sides for or against him in his theories of his discomfort. One of them glanced ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... not stop running and shouting "Sanctuary!" till he reached a cell built over the aisles in Notre Dame. Here he deposited Esmeralda carefully, untied the ropes which bruised her arms, and spread a mattress on the floor; then he left her, and returned with ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... a wave crest, and sometimes a particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and drenched him once more. But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain that if the boat had capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon the ocean as if he felt sure that it was a great soft mattress. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... 26th she was worse and delirious. On the evening of Sunday the 27th Dr. Stewart got a message from her husband that the end was drawing near. "He was sitting by the side of a rude bed formed of boxes, but covered with a soft mattress, on which lay his dying wife. All consciousness had now departed, as she was in a state of deep coma, from which all efforts to rouse her had been unavailing. The strongest medical remedies and her husband's voice were both alike powerless to reach the ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... colonel, the other a captain—lying side by side, and both wounded. They had a Bible between them.' Another letter from Philadelphia says: 'There are over 8000 on the island (Fort Delaware), the hospitals crowded, and between 300 and 400 men on the bare floor of the barracks; not even a straw mattress under them. The surgeon says the hundred pillows and other things sent from here were a God-send. Everything except gray clothing will be thankfully received, and can be fully disposed of. It is very difficult to get money ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... whipped up his horse to bring a doctor, but on the way spread the news that I had been killed by a fall. Among the first callers after the accident were Donald G. Mitchell and his daughter, my neighbours. I lay on a mattress on the lawn all afternoon ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... about for the wonderful Princess clothes she had glimpsed earlier in the morning. But Kathleen had hidden them in a perfectly safe place under the mattress, which she ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... from the rubber bags, and, when supper was over, would prepare a bed. If any kind of boughs or willows were to be had, we cut a quantity and, laying them in regular order near together, formed a sort of mattress which was very comfortable. If these were not to be had, the softest spot of sand was the next choice. In putting the river suit on in the morning, there was often something of a shock, for it was not always thoroughly dry. At length the welcome end of Desolation ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... remember how scared we both were that somebody might break into the room and steal it and how we used to hide it under the mattress every night and take it out ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... pine-bough against a patch of stars. She sat on the edge of the cot and picked up a discarded necktie, sawing it across her knee mechanically to free it from the dust. Her husband placed himself beside her. His weight brought down the mattress and rocked her against his shoulder; he put his arm around her, and she gave way to ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... to cross on. The prince set off with the water, in spite of all his wife's entreaties, and his brothers tilted the plank into the water. The prince would have been drowned had not the Princess Jahuran thrown him a mattress. And the same thing happened during the next four days. The brothers wanted something to eat or drink, and their monkey-brother brought it them across a rope or plank, which they cut or dropped into the water, and ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous

... Smerdyakov had seen them, when did he see them for the last time? What if his master had taken the notes from under his bed and put them back in his cash-box without telling him? Note, that according to Smerdyakov's story the notes were kept under the mattress; the prisoner must have pulled them out, and yet the bed was absolutely unrumpled; that is carefully recorded in the protocol. How could the prisoner have found the notes without disturbing the bed? How could he have helped soiling with his ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... it all out—anything, anything,—" but she was gone. He took the tract which she had left on his table and carefully tore it in four pieces, and hid them under the mattress. Then he went to sleep. The professor was in distinctly a ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, etc., they all wanted to be sent to America. The mayor informed them that arrangements had been made to transport them there at the expense of the French Government. He also said that he was authorized to give each volunteer the sum of twenty-five francs, a mattress, blanket and a supply of tin-ware. This joyful news was received with loud cries of "Vive la France! Vive la Republique!" and three hearty cheers were given for the mayor. As the volunteers joyously dispersed, an officer informed Paul ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... instantly. She therefore, galloped up the drive to the Drysdale house, and hastily told them what had happened. In less than three minutes, Mr. Drysdale had improvised a stretcher out of a wicker settee and a mattress, and had summoned four stout negroes to bring it after him, while he and his wife hurried out to the road. There they found Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Robbins supporting her. She said that she was in great pain, from severe contusion, and possible dislocation ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton

... I grew unable to leave the hard cork mattress on the camp-bed in Fred's tent. They went again to the commandant, this time determined to ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... inn was at the entrance of the town. My uncle, bearing Larry in his arms, entered it with me, and ordering a mattress to be brought, placed him on ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... formed from a sitting-room, a basin to wash in upon a red plush table—no glass, no jug, no lock upon the door. Instead, gilt mirrors, three bell ropes and a barometer. A bed with a mattress upon it ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... were made of the same type of wood and could easily be cleaned by scouring with sand every Saturday. The beds were bottomed with rope which was run backward and forward from one rail to the other. On this framework was placed a mattress of wheat straw. Each spring the mattresses were emptied and refilled ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... ought at once to retire to bed, upon a mattress, and keep perfectly quiet till every symptom has disappeared. Sometimes this simple measure, promptly adopted, is sufficient to avert the threatened evil. If there is much feeling of fullness, and the patient is of full habit generally, eight or a dozen leeches may be applied to the lower part ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... three days past. I dare n't go to the town, for they would put me in prison as I've nothing to pay with. In all the world I've not the worth of anything but what you see on my body I've a poor old mother who owned nothing but a feather mattress, and they've dragged it from under her back so she lies on the bare straw, and she troubles me more than myself. For riches come and go if I lose to day, I gain to-morrow; I will pay for my ox when I can, and will not cry for that. And you cry ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... and some water coming into my mouth: I awoke. All was dark and quiet; I put my hand out, and I put it into the water—where was I—was I overboard? I jumped up in my fright; I found that was still on the standing bed-place, but the water was above the mattress. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... things Monsieur Laurentie had sent me for—a mattress, a chair, food, and medicine—every person in the crowd wished to carry some small portion of them. We returned in a troop to the factory, and stood beyond the stone, a group of sorrowful, almost despairing people. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... many reassurances as to the strength of this arrangement before Tristan was at comparative peace. Dr. Grosnoff effected an examination by slacking off the ropes until Tristan lay a couple of feet clear of the bed, then himself lay on the mattress face up, prodding ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby

... wellbeing of it all! Yet this first night, passed in the familiar luxury which had lapped her round since childhood, was a harder, more bitter night than any of the preceding three hundred and sixty-five she had spent tossing weary, aching limbs on a lumpy straw mattress with a coarse brown woollen blanket drawn up beneath her chin, vexing ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler



Words linked to "Mattress" :   futon, spring mattress, feather bed, palliasse, tick, paillasse, air mattress, bed, pallet, mattress pad, featherbed



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