"Sewing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the tall workman, Philip, frequently passed by La Blanchotte's house, and sometimes he made bold to speak to her when he saw her sewing near the window. She answered him civilly, always sedately, never joking with him, nor permitting him to enter her house. Notwithstanding, being, like all men, a bit of a coxcomb, he imagined that she was often rosier than usual ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... he brought in, worked away diligently, thankful to have some employment to occupy our attention. But she stopped every now and then, when her eyes were too full of tears to allow her to see her needle, and sobbed as if her dear heart would break. Then on she went again, sewing as fast as she could, anxious to please old Tom by showing him how much she had done. At length Nancy arrived with a big bundle on her back. "I've brought away all I could," she said, as she deposited her load on ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... just completed sewing up the gaping wound in his brother's temple, when the cooper came ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... keep her bed, as a rule, for nineteen days after every abortion and every confinement, but for weeks after she commences to move about she should avoid any severe muscular exertion, especially lifting, long walks, straining, or working on the sewing-machine. Straining at stool is one of the commonest causes. Many women have a tendency to constipation for weeks or months after childbirth. They are aware that it is unfavorable to health, and they seek to aid nature by violent muscular ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... toward ambition and energy, all make the position of the grandfather in many homes of struggling poverty a most unhappy one. In such homes the grandmother is often still seen to be really useful. She may make it possible for the young mother to earn outside the home. She may, if skilled in sewing, ease the expense of ready-made clothes. She may, at least, and usually does, relieve the mother of much care of the babies. There are several reasons why more aged men are sent to public institutions for final care than aged women of the ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... all alone," she remarked, turning to her visitor. "Suppose we go and sit with him for a while. I have some sewing to do, and it will be much nicer out there than ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... whether any decoration really adds to the beauty of the finest leather. It should be remembered that the binding is not all on the outside. The visible cover is only the jacket of the real cover on which the integrity of the book depends. The sewing is the first element in time and importance. To be well bound a book should lie open well, otherwise it is bound not for the reader ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... author's language, one would suppose that modern capital was made up entirely of separate little implements like sewing-machines, and that every one would, if the state were the sole capitalist, receive on application a machine of the same grade, which he might take away with him, and use or break in a corner. Now, if modern capital were really of this nature, the state ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... sat his wife, her dark head with its glossy braids bent over her sewing. Hers was a sweet, kindly face, and she endeared herself to every one by her ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... fulfilling either task is pleading to be allowed to enter my intelligence. My task is its task. My success will be its success. My failure will react on it, since failure sets back by that degree the whole procession of the ages. Whether I am painting a great masterpiece or sewing on a button my success is essential to the ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... the New Orleans Exposition, among the chains and wheels from the blacksmith and wagon shops, the brackets, step-ladders, etc., from the carpenter shop, the cups and coffee-pots from the tinshop, and the girls' plain sewing and fancy-work. ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 1, January 1888 • Various
... and I took a book and sat down by the little fire to read; but though I kept on turning over the pages, I did not follow the text; for I was either thinking about Mrs Dean's needle as it darted in and out of the stuff she was sewing, or else about Mr John Dempster and our meeting that day—of how I had promised to go up and see him on Sunday, and how different ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... talked at their will, and were silent at their will, within their home brightened by those little jokes and endearments and allusions which make up that inner domestic masonry which is close-tiled for ever to the outsider. Five or six evenings a week, she with her sewing and Frank with his book, settled down to such enjoyment as men go to the ends of the earth to seek, while it awaits them, if they will but atune their souls to sympathy, beside their own hearthstones. Now and again their ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... by feeding two sets of larvae on the same plant but exposed to differently coloured surroundings, obtained by sewing the leaves together, so that in one case only the dark upper surface, in the other the whitish under surface was exposed to view. The result in each case was a corresponding change of colour in the larvae, confirming the experiments on different individuals of the same batch of larvae which had ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... as would be useful. I don't want to make out as I'm a dabster at any one thing, gentlemen, but there ain't many things I shouldn't be ready to have a try at, from catching one's dinner to cooking it, or from sewing on buttons to ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... dropped the Sewing Aid Society advertisement," admitted Hale. "But you've got others as ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... are wet and cold as usual, with no sun to dry. Fair cover in a small wood. Going good last night. Haven't struck the Hustre yet. Meals: green apples and brambles. Feet pretty sore. Made a needle out of wood and did a bit of sewing. ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... and kept her own counsel. She went about her daily duties with an unceasing industry: Mrs. Trelyon was astonished to see how she seemed to find time for everything. The winter was coming on, and the sewing club was in full activity, but even apart from the affairs of that enterprise, Wenna Rosewarne seemed to be everywhere throughout the village, to know everything, to be doing everything that prudent help and friendly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... strips of canvas were made into a sort of pack harness for the oxen. It was a sad sight to see the strong and vigorous young men of a few days ago reduced to such straits; almost skeletons now, with no hope of nourishment to invigorate them. They made canteens by sewing a couple of small powder cans in cloth, with a band ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... of fatigue with women is the useless strain in sewing. "I get so tired in the back of my neck" is a frequent complaint. "It is because you sew with the back of your neck" is generally the correct explanation. And it is because you sew with the muscles of your waist that they feel so strangely fatigued, and the same with the ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... stern compartment is the biggest in the ship, and it's got lots of air in it. Just think of that hold! It must be nearly full of air. The stern compartment of the hold has got nothing in it but sewing-machines. I saw 'em loading her. The pig-iron was mostly amidships, or at least forward of this compartment. Now, there's no kind of a cargo that'll accommodate as much air as sewing-machines. They're packed in wooden frames, not boxes, and don't fill up half the room they take. ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... learnt, through the troopers from some blacks who were captured, that Strau's party was camped for dinner when the blacks attacked them. The man was speared while reading a book beneath the dray, and the woman was sewing, sitting against the wheel of the dray. Before being killed outright, the woman was subjected to horrible outrage by the blacks. It was intended to keep the little girl, but two old gins quarrelled over her possession, and it was decided to kill the child, ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... She taught the school, visited the families, and on Sundays read to such audiences as she could collect, took seven of the poor female children to live with her at the parsonage, instructed all who would learn in the arts of carding, spinning, weaving, knitting, sewing, braiding mats, etc. Truly she remembered what 'Satan finds for idle hands to do,' and kept all her charges busy, and consequently happy. All honor to her memory! She was a wise and faithful servant. There is still ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... sewing-table receptacle could possibly hold one quarter of the contents of that button box, the accumulation of at least three generations. It was heavy, and having no handles, you had to grasp it with open palms on either side—hence the polish. It rattled when taken down from its shelf, and the ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... left Viola that morning, she threw herself prostrate on the floor, moaning and sobbing. After a while she arose and went to the dining room door. She looked in upon her mother, quietly sewing, and tried to say in a cheerful manner: "Mamma, I shall be busy writing all day in my room. Let no one disturb me." Her mother looked at her gently and lovingly and assured her that no one should disturb her. Her mother surmised that all had not gone well ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... magnet is called a bar magnet. Magnetize a sewing-needle. For some experiments a needle-magnet, as we may call it, is ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... those who had gathered near the door of the room in which Bathurst was lying, but the Doctor had raised his voice, and she heard what he said, and bent over her work of sewing strips of linen together for bandages with a paler face than had been caused by the outbreak of musketry. Gradually the firing ceased. The Sepoys had suffered heavily from the steady fire of the invisible defenders and gradually ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... cane; two rattlesnakes' skins, one having on it fourteen rattles; coronets for the head, made of erect feathers of rooks and eagles; smooth needles of horn and bone, some of them crooked like sail-needles; deers' sinews, for sewing, and a parcel of three-corded thread, resembling twine. I believe one of these mummies is now in the British Museum. From Mummy Hall you pass into Gothic Avenue, where the resemblance to Gothic architecture very perceptibly ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... He gives her wood and flour, and a great many other things; and my mother employs her to do sewing. She is ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... fragments of the dress are preserved, and may be seen in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy. Portions of the seams still remain, and are creditable specimens of early needlework. The material employed in sewing was fine gut of three strands, and the regularity and closeness of the stitching cannot fail to excite admiration. It is another of the many proofs that, even in the earliest ages, the Celt was gifted with more than ordinary skill in the execution ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... terrified, rang the bell for aid. A jovial-looking woman—tall and well-shaped—came in, holding a shirt she was sewing. Her eyes and hair were black, and her oval face had the rude coloring of health. She brought into the death-chamber at once a whiff of ozone, and a suggestion of tragic incongruity. Nodding pleasantly at the visitor, she advanced quickly to the bedside, and laid her ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... said Miss Wren, 'I have to scud about town at all hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing, it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the great ladies that takes it out ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... seated on the piazza with some light sewing when they came up, and to Mr. Follet's excited introduction of Mr. Langly she made polite but unrecognizing acknowledgment, and her husband was too impatient ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... surprised to hear we might move that day, and must hold ourselves in readiness. We all much wanted to buy things, but there was no help for it. Had a field-day at button-sewing and letter-writing. At eleven there was harness-cleaning, and I was sadly regarding a small remnant of dubbin and my dusty girths and leathers, when the order came for "boot and saddle," and that little ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... her sewing utensils and a piece of light needlework, she went into the parlor and seated herself near the centre-table, over which ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... my ankle! You played at jack straws and at cat's-cradle with me. Oh, that puts me in mind! Here are your gloves which I asked you that night to let me mend. I've been a great while about them, but are not they very neatly mended, father? Look at the sewing.' ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... nothing can give nothing," said Mrs. Sayers, the sexton's wife, as the ladies of the sewing society were busily engaged in packing the contents of a large box, destined for a ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... tender had thrown coal all over him, and he looked like a disreputable buffalo who had tried to wallow in a general store. For there lay scattered over the landscape, from the burst cars, type-writers, sewing-machines, bicycles in crates, a consignment of silver-plated imported harness, French dresses and gloves, a dozen finely moulded hard-wood mantels, a fifteen-foot naphtha-launch, with a solid brass bedstead crumpled around her bows, a case of telescopes ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... them you had only to send two shillings in stamps, while the prizes were advertised as follows: First prize, L1000 a year for life; second prize, thirty-six grand pianos and fourteen bicycles; third prize, a sewing machine and six cakes of scented soap. The prizes were to be awarded for the first correct answers received by post, but the Doctor-in-Law took good care to write three sets of answers himself, and put them in our letter-box a half-an-hour before the first ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... all to themselves when they reached the wharf, for the keeper had gone up into the town, and his wife, who had set up a frugal housekeeping in the captain's cabin, sat in the shade of the house with her sewing, the Monday's washing having been early spread to the breeze in a corner of the main deck. She accepted Captain Parish's explanations of his presence with equanimity, and seemed surprised and amused at the young landswoman's curiosity and eagerness, for a ship was ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... reply readily. She told him only that his brother was in Heaven, and was praying for them all. Jean-Christophe could get no more out of her; she bade him be quiet, and to let her go on with her work. She seemed to be absorbed in her sewing; she looked anxious, and did not raise her eyes. But after some time she looked at him where he was in the corner, whither he had retired to sulk, began to smile, and told him to ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... to see them for a great while, and the cold weather was coming, and there were hard times in store for them, if they did not manage to get some sewing, or something to do. It was the first of November, and the breeze was no longer soft and bland, as it came from the blue waters upward into the little room, but it was fresh and chilly, and had a mournful tone, and Nannie got cotton and stuffed the windows tight to ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... was not there, but Aunt Miranda sat by the window with her lap full of sewing things, and a chair piled with pasteboard boxes by her side. In one hand was the ancient, battered, brown felt turban, and in the other were the orange and black porcupine quills from Rebecca's last summer's hat; from the hat of the summer before that, and the summer ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... grass nest, hung from a crotch, is one of the tidiest bits of basket-making in Birdland, and would do credit to human hands. Yet she has only a beak for a shuttle or darning-needle—whichever you please to call it. I think it is most like the needle of a sewing-machine, with the eye at the point, so that it pokes the thread through as it goes into the cloth, instead of pulling it through with the ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... a patroness of the library and sewing-circle, and takes the greatest interest in it. The Reverend Doctor Pilsbury relies upon her for everything. She runs the society, even to the training of the young ladies, sir. You shall ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... occupied by colored people, to whom he seemed to belong. An old man was said to be lying ill in the house, which was rented by two colored women, who were anxious to get work in the neighborhood, or washing and sewing to do at home. At that time I was preparing for rather a long journey; and on inquiring for some one to sew for me, Sallie Smith was sent to me. When she came, I learned that she was an inmate of one of the new cottages, and the grandmother of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... showed where the moon would shortly rise. He looked out in dreamy silence, and for some minutes seemed too much absorbed in thought to notice the presence of Innocent, who had seated herself at a small table near him, on which she had set a lit candle, and was quietly sewing. She had forgotten that she still wore the wreath of wild roses,—the fragile flowers were drooping and dying in her hair, and as she bent over her work and the candlelight illumined her delicate profile, there was something ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... movement it is not strange that new factors are being introduced without relation to the educational process as a whole. The isolation of manual training, sewing, and cooking from the physical, natural, and social sciences is justifiable only on the ground that the means of establishing more organic relations are not yet available. To continue such isolated activities after a way is found of harnessing them to the ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... thoughtfully into her lap; only for a few minutes however, for the door opened and the slim form of her sister Klea appeared, the sister whose meagre rations she had dreamily eaten up, and Klea had been sitting up half the night sewing for her, and then had gone out before sunrise to fetch water from the Well of the Sun for the morning sacrifice at the altar ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... piety, who go in search of unknown islands, or those newly discovered, on purpose to plant cocoa nut trees, and to sink wells for the use of ships. There are people at Oman who cross to these islands that produce the cocoa nut trees, of planks made from which they build ships, sewing the planks with yarns made from the bark of the tree. The mast is made of the same wood, the sails are formed from the leaves, and the bark is worked up into cordage: and having thus completed their vessel, they load her with cocoa nuts, which they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... brother, sewing "parfleche" soles upon a pair of moccasins. I noticed that she had an abstracted air, and at short intervals glanced out from the opening of the tent. While we were engrossed with our discussion she rose silently, ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... thumped with joy o'er the cheering prospect. She kissed and fondled Louise and even teased her. Reading or chatting to the blind girl, sewing her frocks or performing a thousand and one kindly services, her sole thought was to distract and enliven the prisoned soul behind ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... bench, stitching away for dear life. He pursed his lips and screwed up his mouth into all sorts of odd shapes with the effort, for it was an effort. He was only eight, and you would scarcely have imagined him over six, as he sat there sewing like a real little tailor; only Paolo knew but one seam, and that a hard one. Yet he held the needle and felt the edge with it in quite a grown-up way, and pulled the thread just as far as his short arm would reach. His mother sat on a stool by the window, where she could ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... not at fault, the people of England howled with derision when the first locomotive was built; the men who put out the first sewing machine had their stores broken into and the machines smashed; and the telephone when first installed was considered simply as a plaything and curiosity, and not as a useful improvement. It has been the history of every age and of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... I do not assist others, I am sure I shall not deserve any when I want it.' So saying, he left his house; and his wife, after cleaning and putting in their proper places those things which had been used at dinner, again sat down to her sewing. ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... myself, and I am very glad I didn't." He smiled as he reflected on his judicious wariness. "But, however," he continued, "I might as well finish up this business now. There is Rachel Doolittle. Who knows but she'd make a likely wife? Lyddy sot a good deal by her. She never had a quilting or a sewing bee but what nothing would do but she must give Rachel Doolittle an invite. Yes; I wonder I never decided on her before. She will be glad of a home sure enough, for she haves to live around, as it were, ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... locked his arms around her, and when the door opened, he went in ahead of her and pushed open the shutters. The low sun flooded the room and when Hale turned, June was looking with wild eyes from one thing to another in the room—her rocking-chair at a window, her sewing close by, a book on the table, her bed made up in the corner, her washstand of curly maple—the pitcher full of water and clean towels hanging from the rack. Hale had gotten out the things she had packed away and the room was just as she had always kept it. She rushed ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... is the way of the world. At home we shall be sewing a shroud; and here there will soon be sewing too, I suppose—but of ...
— Hedda Gabler - Play In Four Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... her elbows on the window-ledge, turned her head over her shoulder; 'Toinette, tying Tod's sleeves with red ribbon, looked up; Aimee went on with her sewing, the two little straight lines making themselves visible on her forehead between her eyebrows. The fact of something being "up" with any one of their circle was enough to ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... But he had become a part of the great silence; almost as still as grand'mA"re he was. For hours he would sit and look at Claire RenA(C) bending over her sewing, over her scrubbing, over the brightening of the pots and pans. Sometimes his shining black eyes seemed to lie down in his face, to be going away forever behind ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... thing which you will do instead is a funded capital, which will roll you up a perpetual interest; and secondly, the disagreeable duty is forever abolished. I say forever, because, when you have gone without the button awhile, the inconvenience it occasions will reconcile you to the necessity of sewing it on,—will even go further, and make it a positive relief amounting to positive pleasure. Besides, every time you use it, for a long while after, you will have a delicious sense of satisfaction, such as accompanies the sudden complete cessation of a dull, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the floor of the porch, about fifteen feet from her, was a hard-faced customer, with stony eyes like those of a snake. He was sewing on a bridle that had given way. Melissy noticed that from the pocket of his chaps the butt of a revolver peeped. She judged it to be the custom in Dead Man's Cache to go ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... in a Japanese house for servants to do. There are no fires to lay, no furniture to polish and clean, no carpets to sweep, and no linen to wash and mend; so Japanese servants spend much time chatting to each other, or sewing new kimonos together, or playing chess. As a rule, there are many more servants than are necessary to do the work. This is because servants are very cheap. There are always plenty of girls who are ready to fill the lower places if they can obtain food and clothes for their services, and the upper ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... the Sophomore Select Sewing Society met at the home of Miss Jane Bartley. A pleasant time was had by all, making rackets and nightcaps for the poor. Refreshments ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various
... debased, which, for the first time, opens itself to gratitude; and, until then, no one had caused Mont Saint Jean to experience the religious ardor of a sentiment so new to her. At the end of a few moments, Fleur-de-Marie shuddered slightly, wiped away a tear, and resumed her sewing. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... work at harvest I must not move before—and the harvest is already near. So I nibble the pen and look around the long match-boarded hall, waiting for the inspiration which is strangely slow in coming, while my wife, who was Grace Carrington, smiles over her sewing and suggests that it is ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... and it must take an immense amount of sewing to provide all the changes of raiment desired by the ladies and children," he remarked laughingly. "So that matter may be considered arranged, and my ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... it wasn't because I didn't agree with Esther's song that I made her stop singing, it was because it was so dreadfully true that I felt at the moment I couldn't bear it. You are sorry too, aren't you, Nan?" she queried, turning to the girl on the other side of her who was sewing industriously on a soft blue cashmere frock, almost similar in color and texture to the one Betty had at this moment inside her trunk. The gown represented the complete restoration of peace between Nan and Betty. At first there had been some difficulty in persuading Nan ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... Sewing rough goat's-hair cloth into tents may be as truly serving Christ as preaching His name. All manner of work that contributes to the same end is the same in worth and in recompense. Perhaps the wholesomest form of Christian ministry is that after the Apostolic ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... and thread he had found in the chest, to mend the coat which his master had so shockingly torn. He was called off from his work, but on returning to it, what a wonderful sight met his eyes! The needle was sewing industriously away, without being touched by any one; it took fine, elegant stitches, such as Labakan himself had never made even in his ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... which, as Frank entered, he found to be occupied by two young ladies, who, judging from the overturned work-basket, and the half-finished articles of apparel which were scattered about over the floor, had been engaged in sewing. ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... the Nunnery. She came in search of employment to our house in St. Albans, Vt., stating that she had traveled on foot from Montreal, and her appearance indicated that she was poor, and had seen hardship. She obtained work at sewing, her health not being sufficient for more arduous task. She appeared to be suffering under some severe mental trial, and though industrious and lady-like in her deportment, still appeared absent minded, and occasionally singular in her manner. After awhile she ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... unrefreshing sleep, broken by the bell calling her to another office in the chapel; then, at last, the dawn, and the day that would seem as much a prisoner as herself within the convent walls, and the praying and nasal chanting, and the counting of sheets and pillow-cases, and doing a little sewing, and singing to herself, perhaps, and then the being reproved for it—the whole varied by meals of coarse food, and periodical stations in her seat in the choir. The day! The very sun seemed imprisoned in his corner ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... he ate, sewing on some fancy work she held in her lap. When he had finished she cleared the table and then read to him a story ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... wanted to know, could they not be filed and paid in a lump sum at some convenient period—say when the Anecdotes and Reminiscences had been published and paid for? Miss Lydia would calmly go on with her sewing and say, "We'll pay as we go as long as the money lasts, and then perhaps they'll have to ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... wholly of that granite which is used for the new pavement in London, which, hard as it is, they square with very little difficulty. Here I first saw the women in plaids. The plaid makes, at once, a hood and cloak, without cutting or sewing, merely by the manner of drawing the opposite sides over the shoulders. The maids, at the inns, run over the house barefoot; and children, not dressed in rags, go without shoes or stockings. Shoes are, indeed, not yet in universal use; they came late into this country. One of the professors ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... on the porch sewing on a pair of leather chaps, indulged in a grin. "I see this is where we go out of the sheep ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... near the fire during this conversation, and the Indian woman was busy with a deer-skin garment. It was a warm looking jacket, and she was sewing on an extra string of bright-coloured beads. When this had been accomplished to her satisfaction, she held it forth for ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... the funeral, when something happened which went far towards removing her hesitation. She was sitting in Mrs. Chigwin's garden, which was warm and dry in the afternoon sun. Mrs. Chigwin was indoors, vigorously "straightening" the house. Milly was sewing a frock for her child, and the child itself was tumbling about on a soft rug at ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the relief of outward suffering, it was difficult to rouse their enthusiasm for an idea, to persuade them to labor for a principle. They clamored for practical work, something for their hands to do; for fairs, sewing societies to raise money for soldiers' families, for tableaux, readings, theatricals, anything but conventions to discuss principles and to circulate petitions for emancipation. They could not see that the best service they ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... greater part of them colored girls, but some were white. The ages of these juvenile philanthropists varied from four to fourteen. After singing and prayer, the object of the association was stated, which was to raise money by sewing, soliciting contributions, and otherwise, for ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... a bitter folk," said Barneveld as he went to bed. "I have nothing good to expect of them." Next day was occupied in sewing up and concealing his papers, including a long account of his examination, with the questions and answers, in his Spanish arm-chair. Next day van der Meulen said to the servant, "I will bet you a hundred florins that you'll not be here ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... afterward, as I wandered through the warehouses—pyramids of the same chair, cupboards full of the same cheap violin, stacks of the same album of music, acres of the same carpet and wallpaper, tons of the same gramophone, hundreds of tons of the same sewing-machine and lawn-mower—I felt as if I had been made free of the secrets of every village in every State of the Union, and as if I had lived in every little house and cottage thereof all my life! Almost no sense of beauty in those tremendous supplies of merchandise, but a lot of ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... the reindeer, 'I know you can bind all the winds of the world with a bit of sewing cotton. When a skipper unties one knot he gets a good wind, when he unties two it blows hard, and if he undoes the third and the fourth he brings a storm about his head wild enough to blow down the forest trees. Won't you give the little girl a drink, so that she may have the strength of ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... remember, Bertha, how you used to make this Mrs. Ford discuss doctrinal matters when she was sewing for you. ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... next morning, the mountaineer had again ridden away, and soon after breakfast the girls began work on their equipment, patching up the tents and sewing the blankets that had been cut. The doctor reported that Lizzie and Sue were considerably improved, and decided that, if their improvement continued, he would return to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... one,—not one. I have seen women, through love of gossip, through indolence, through sheer famine of mental pabulum, leave undone things that ought to be done,—rush to the assembly, the lecture-room, the sewing-circle, or vegetate in squalid, shabby, unwholesome homes; but I never saw education run to ruin. So it seems to me that we are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... "He is sewing, and he is to-day my first gentleman of the bedchamber; he is dressing me. Ah! in the presence of this humble patcher, I remember that a wise man said, 'A king is but a man to his valet de chambre.' But do not allow my presence ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... here she was disappointed, too, and this increased her peevishness; though the reason why she could not go was, because she did not learn her lesson in season, and that was her own fault. Toward night, when Mrs Standish had leisure to sit down to her sewing, she called Angeline, and reminded her of the ill-natured spirit she had shown in the early part of the afternoon. The child was rather ashamed of what she had said, it is true; but she tried to ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... the sparkle's dead, There falls a dash of rain, But who would care when such an air Comes blowing up the Seine? And still Ninette sits sewing Beside her window-pane, When it's Paris, it's ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... clerks and bookkeepers, and porters and messengers, but such people as I sometimes catch sight of from the elevated trains (in my reluctant midsummer flights through the city), sweltering in upper rooms over sewing-machines or lap-boards, or stewing in the breathless tenement streets, or driving clangorous trucks, or monotonous cars, or bending over wash-tubs at open windows for breaths of the no-air without. These all get on ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... private workroom immediately behind the shop. His wife sat there sewing; a broad, motherly woman of forty-five, fat, tranquil, kind, with an old eye, a young voice, and a face that had got its general flabbiness through much paddling and gnawing from other women's teething ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... replied the Prince—he felt kindly, even to his grim nurse. "Let me have my dinner, and you go to your sewing." ...
— The Little Lame Prince - Rewritten for Young Readers by Margaret Waters • Dinah Maria Mulock
... Lucas, leading the way up the common staircase of a tall house, whose upper stories overhung the street. Up and up, Lucas led the way to a room in the high peaked roof, looking out at the back. Here Stephen recognised a press, but it was not at work, only a young friar was sitting there engaged in sewing up sheets so as to form a pamphlet. Lucas spoke to him in Flemish to explain his own ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... as I can, sir," he said. "If it had been a silliver one, I shouldn't so much have minded. I was thinking of sewing it up in the padding of ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... that the ordinary means employed to propel light machinery by the foot are fatiguing in the extreme and although the best of these is the rock shaft with foot pieces, employed almost universally in modern sewing machines, this requires the operator to sit bolt upright, a position very trying to the back, and one which has been shown to be productive of weakness ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... by boys or idle persons, who put in dogs, cats, or dead animals. As we were going upstairs, we heard an old woman singing a cheerful ditty in an awfully cracked voice, and as we got a full view of her before she could see us, we saw a clean, old body sitting, sewing and singing, while a baby rolling on the floor in a state of perfect ecstasy, was keeping up a sort of crowing duet with her. She seemed delighted to see these ladies, who belong to the Junta, and led us into a large hall where a score of nurses ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... to finish that one. You're a matchmaking old maid," declared Esme, wrinkling her delicate nose at him, "and if you're ever put up for our sewing-circle I ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... a shock of delight that made his heart throb, he tried to picture this beautiful fair creature sitting over there in that very chair by the side of the fire, her head bent down over her sewing, the warm light of the lamp touching the tender curve of her cheek. And when she lifted her head to speak to him—and when her large and lambent eyes met his—surely Fionaghal, the fair poetess from strange lands, never spoke in softer tones than this other beautiful stranger, who was ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... required in the manufacture of shoes,—the rearing of cattle, the preparation of their hides, and the cutting and sewing. If the hide, on leaving the farmer's stable, is worth one, it is worth two on leaving the tanner's pit, and three on leaving the shoemaker's shop. Each laborer has produced a portion of the utility; so that, by adding all these portions together, we get the value of the article. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... sausage making, baking of blood pudding, and candle steeping. The seamstress who used to make up their homespun dresses had to come at this time, of course, and those were always two pleasant weeks—when the women folk sat together and busied themselves with sewing. The cobbler, who made shoes for the entire household, sat working at the same time in the men-servants' quarters, and one never tired of watching him as he cut the leather and soled and heeled the shoes and put eyelets ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... September, and about two months after Vivian's death. Clarice sat sewing, robed in the white weeds of widowhood, in the room which she usually occupied in the Countess's tower. The garments worn by a widow were at this time extremely strict and very unbecoming, though the period during which they were worn ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... a remarkable woman. She has been described by her daughter as "a great artist lost for want of development"; showing a wonderful dexterity in whatever she put her hand to, no matter if practiced in it or not. "She tried everything, and always succeeded"—sewing, drawing, tuning the piano—"she would have made shoes, locks, furniture, had it been necessary." But her tastes were simple and domestic. Though married out of her rank, she was entirely without any vain ambition to push herself into ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... relations to common objects. The "library associations" of Indiana, which were in fact effective anti-slavery societies, were to a large extent composed of women. To the library were added numerous other disguises, such as "reading circles," "sewing societies," "women's clubs." In many communities the appearance of men in any of these enterprises would create suspicion or even raise a mob. But the women worked on quietly, effectively, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... sir. I'm hard enough over the jobs, but it touches a man when it comes to sewing 'em up in their blankets ready for you know what. Makes you think of ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... them up here and there, simply because they could not keep away from the place, or keep their hands off the trees and bushes. Sometimes in the long, tender afternoons, we see far up on some pasture slope, groups of girls scattered about on the grass, with their sewing, or listening to some one reading. Other times they are giving a little play, usually a comedy, for life is so happy here that tragedy would not be true to it, with the characters coming and going in a grove of small pines, for the coulisses, and using a level of grass ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... lies peacefully in the bay; a brisk northerly breeze in the forenoon died to light airs in the evening—it is warm enough, the temperature in the hut was 63 deg. this evening. We have had a long busy day at clothing—everyone sewing away diligently. The Eastern Party ponies were put on ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... man relapsed into silence. His eyes ran over the shoulders of the big Jud who squatted by the fire, sewing his broken bridle reins with ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... are hung with photographs; your wife or daughter has a sewing-machine. In the kitchen are endless contrivances which our great- grandmothers would have greeted with speechless astonishment. You can order a case of goods from Hong Kong on Monday, and be told that they are ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... she grew older, she understood all this, and tried to be like a daughter to the friend who had been so kind to her. Her aunt's queer little ways only made her feel, then, that it was for her she had learned to save even the shreds she cut off when she was sewing. After the orphan girl was grown, she was married to a very kind gentleman. This gentleman was so grateful to the aunt for her care of the orphan, that he wanted her to come and live with them in her comfortable home; ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly
... worm turned, it happened that they were all sitting on the porch. Curly was sewing a broken stirrup leather, Blackwell had a quirt in his hand, and from time to time flicked it at the back of his victim. Twice the lash stung, not hard, but with pepper enough to hurt. Each time the young man asked him ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... been! How quick to resent an insult and how bold to avenge it! His absurd little tweed cap was lying on the seat, and I picked it up almost sentimentally. The lining was frayed and torn. From my suit case in the van I got out a small sewing kit, and hanging the reins on a hook I began to stitch up the rents as Peg jogged along. I thought with amusement of the quaint life Mr. Mifflin had led in his "caravan of culture." I imagined him addressing the audience of Whitman disciples in Camden, ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... his Ixionides, leaving them early for a drive at night Eastward, and a chat with old Mr. Woodseer over his punching and sewing of his bootleather. Another honest soul. Mr. Woodseer thankfully consented to mount his coach-box next day, and astonish Gower with a drop on his head from the skies about the time of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... awoke, and Peterkin's clock was striking eight when she went down to the kitchen, where she found Mrs. Crawford sewing, and a most dainty breakfast waiting for her on a little round table near an open window shaded with the hop-vines. There was a fresh egg for her, with English buns, and strawberries and cream, ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me, is, that he sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry, or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly, as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea, presently, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... have bodices to her frocks that buttoned up in front, that she might pass the little silver bar through the buttonhole; and she set herself to make watch-pockets in all her skirts, which she managed by cutting slits in them just below the waistband, and sewing to the slits on the inside little pockets like small bag purses. Lydia showed her how to do it; and if the work was somewhat rough, and not quite finished, the pocket answered very well, and we cannot all ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... time you'll have, sewing and knitting all day long, and in the evening reading devotional books to aunty till she ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... and a wild outbreak of spirits. She had reached the stage when she must either laugh or cry. She wandered restlessly round the schoolroom on Saturday afternoon, while the others were amusing themselves with reading, painting, or sewing. ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... who have homes and every appliance to make life pass agreeably, and who yet yawn over an unoccupied evening, fancy a lively young girl all day cooped up at sewing in a close, ill-ventilated room. Evening comes, and she has three times the desire for amusement and three times the need of it that her fashionable sister has. And where can she go? To the theatre, perhaps, with some young man as thoughtless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... and I've taught music; sold goods in a store and worked in a factory; run a sewing-machine, travelled with subscription-books, and hired out to do house-work; and I solemnly aver that the only time I was conscious of genuine enthusiasm for my work, or felt that I was doing myself or others any actual good, was while keeping house. In school ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... to the railway station, Albert made one of a delegation of three. And at the station was Mr. Kendall, and two of the school committee, and one or two members of the church sewing circle, and the president and secretary of the Society for the Relief of the French Wounded. So far from being an intimate confidential farewell, Helen's departure was in the nature of a public ceremony with speech-making. Mr. Price made most of the speeches, in ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... not all play for them, to be sure; but then, work is often even more charming than play, as I think some little girls know when they have been helping their mothers,—running of errands, dusting the furniture, and sewing little squares of patchwork that the baby may have a cradle-quilt made entirely by her ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... pattern, Caroline, I made the dozen I sent Mary Caroline for you. See the little slips fold over and hold up the petticoats," and Mrs. Buchanan held up a tiny garment for Caroline Darrah to admire. They sat by the sunny window in her living-room and both were sewing on dainty cambric and lace. Caroline Darrah's head bent over the piece of ruffling in her hand with flower-like grace and the long lines from her throat suggested decidedly a very lovely Preraphaelite angel. Her ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... weeks Mrs. Gray was unable to take a step except by using a crutch, the pain at times being so severe that sewing was out ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... and accomplishments, with dates—Cooked before marriage at 16; farmed after marriage; home sewing. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... into the room for company. She brought her sewing, one of those elegant pieces of handiwork that give to idleness a good conscience. Gerald felt her delicately try to get acquainted with him. She was not as altogether void of intellectual curiosity as her friend. She would seem to care about discovering further what sort of man he was ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... and took the patient, who insisted his wounds were nothing to make a fuss over, into the work room, setting him down, with the pressure of her two hands on his broad shoulders, in a comfortable chair between a sewing machine and a small table. Then she brought warm water, and sponged the hands, anointed the wounds with some home-made preparation, and clothed them in a pair of her uncle's kid gloves, which were so large and baggy that she had to sit down and laugh ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... talking about," answered Lisbeth. "Yesterday evening when I was helping your daughter with her sewing, the needle pricked my finger and it bled a little. That ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Rev. Mrs. Q., looking up from her bundle of Sewing-Society work, "you are not going to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... and fell upon a scraper, cutting an ugly gash in her forehead. Roswitha and Johanna washed the wound with cold water and decided to tie it up with the long bandage once used to bind the mother's sprained ankle. In their search for the bandage they broke open the lock to the sewing table drawers, which they began to empty of their contents. Among other things they took out a small package of letters tied up with a red silk cord. Before they had ended the search Innstetten came home. He examined the wound ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... gentlemen,' he said with a cheerful air, 'now I live like a Prince.' Charles's wardrobe was as usual most dilapidated, and Cluny's three sisters set at once to work to make him a set of six shirts with their own fair hands, doubtless sewing the most passionate loyalty and infinite regret into ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... thoughts. I entered the first doorway that I saw open, and thus I found myself in a cobbler's shop. The cobbler was seated on a stool at a low table covered with tools and odds and ends in the middle of the room, sewing a boot, which he held to his knee with a strap passed under his foot. His apprentice was sitting near munching a piece of bread. Both looked up with an astonished, not to say startled, expression when I appeared simultaneously with a dazzling flash of lightning, followed ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the retina, which is required for good vision. As we get old, the crystalline lens loses its power to change its adjustment for near objects, although the eye may see at a distance as well as ever. The old person, therefore, must wear convex glasses when looking at near objects, as in reading and sewing. ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... wildest Indian family the male is employed in war, the chase, in fishing, in the manufacture of arms and boats, and in the transportation of the latter during long marches; the female, on the other hand, in the preparation of food, in the hewing of wood, the curing of skins, the sewing of clothes, in the building and preservation of the wig-wam, the care of children, and the carriage of baggage when on the march.(346) These occupations, at first entirely domestic, became, by degrees, separate industries, which are ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... in and found my mother and some of us sitting sewing; he asked if he might read to us, and said that his mother and sister used to like him to read to them when they had work to do. I do not remember in the least what he read to us, though I am sure it was appropriate ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... newspapers are filled with advertisements of cheap sewing machines, which range in price from one to ten dollars. The men who insert these advertisements are among the most unprincipled swindlers in New York. Sometimes they pocket the money and send nothing in return, but when they do send a "machine" it is worthless. The actual cost of it never exceeds ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... has "put in" for many articles in the course of her chequered career. She has had fleeting possession of a steel engraving of QUEEN VICTORIA, a watch that never would go—until her payments ceased—a sewing-machine (treadle), a set of vases and a marble timepiece. The timepiece, she explained, was destined for "the bottom drawer," which she had begun to furnish from the moment a young man first inquired which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... her eyes nor her attention upon what she was doing. She knew perfectly well when she came to a seam. In a letter from a soldier to Mrs. Lee he thanked her for the socks she had sent him, and wrote; "I have fourteen pairs of socks knitted by my mother and my mother's sisters and the Church Sewing Society, and I have not a shirt to my back nor a pair of trousers to my legs nor a whole pair of shoes to my feet." "But," said Mrs. Lee as she concluded the story, "I continued to knit socks ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... anticipation of modern views is most surprising. He recognized that wounds of the intestines were surely fatal unless leakage could be prevented. Accordingly he suggested the opening of the abdomen and the sewing up of such intestinal wounds as could be located. He describes a method of suture for these cases and seems, like many another abdominal surgeon, even to have ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... an old tar, he had brought along wish him nearly the whole contents of his chest. His precious "Ditty Bag," containing his sewing utensils, had been carefully packed away in the bottom of one of his bundles; of which he had as many as an old maid on her travels. In truth, an old salt is very much of an old maid, though, strictly speaking, far from deserving that misdeemed appellative. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... them building schools and chapels, and supplying them with teachers and preachers. I saw them printing books, and tracts, and Bibles, and spreading them abroad in all directions. I saw them founding libraries and reading-rooms, and young men's Christian associations, and ladies' sewing societies. I saw them sending out missionaries abroad, and carrying on a multitude of beneficent operations at home. I asked for the schools and libraries, the books and periodicals, the halls of science and ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... trembling before the mouth of the once glowing fireplace? Even so, dear soul, full of loving-kindness and hospitality as thou wast, yet ever making our house seem like a tomb! And with what patience wouldst thou sit sewing by a crack in the shutters, an inch wide, rejoicing in thy immaculate paint and clear glass! But was there ever a thing of thy spotless and unsullied belongings which a boy might use? How I trembled to touch thy scoured tins, that hung in appalling brightness! with what awe I asked for a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... all at once he charges through the camp. Why, say, he nearly carried off some of our property, when he knocked down that tent. Look at the rip his horns made in the tanned canvas, would you? Some more sewing for Teddy here, to mend ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... not so sure of that, most gracious queen; for I must begin by the statement that queens seem to have disliked all sorts of work, in those days, as much as some queens dislike sewing to-day. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... covered with hair about one-eighth of an inch retained the composition perfectly, and remained sound and dry. From this we perceived that had we employed buffalo instead of elk skins, not singed them so closely as we did, and carefully avoided cutting the leather in sewing, the boat would have been sufficient even with the present composition; or had we singed instead of shaving the elk-skins, we might have succeeded. But we discovered our error too late; the buffalo had ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... chairs, stools, and boxes as the place could afford. The darkness was made visible by a few sickly gas-jets and some half dozen candles in appropriate black glass candlesticks that looked suspiciously like bottles. Field was as busy as a shuttle in a sewing-machine. He announced that Elder Melville E. Stone would "preside over the meetin' and line out the hymns," which Mr. Stone, though no singer, proceeded to do, calling on the mendacious Sinners for brief confessions of their manifold transgressions ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... up, appears to furnish an explanation of some other characters in which the little circle and loops are found. For example, the character shown in plate LXV, 44 (Dres. 2 (45)b and c), apparently refers to the act of sewing or stitching indicated by the pictures below the text. As the circle and loops form an important part of the character, it is probable that c or ch is the chief or prominent element of the word. It is possible therefore, that chuyah, "to sew," or some derivative thereof, would be a ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... the shore, Suzee all animation now and chattering on the possibility of sewing sea-shells into ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... Hazel. 'Here are six brackets together, for instance, which should be one in a place; and I am puzzled in what light to hang these pictures;and these books have no place where to be. And if you want needles, Josephine, or a thimbleor a sewing-bird, or any little trifle like notepaper or a clotheshamper, help yourself!'And her sweet laugh rung out, half for ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... expression, just because her mother had spoken and seemed to ask for sympathy; and then she looked away for a few moments. She had a bit of work in her hands, a little bag which she was making out of a piece of old Italian damask, to hold a needle-case and thread and scissors. She had stopped sewing, and instinctively waited before beginning again, as though to acknowledge by a little affectionate deference that her mother had said something serious and had a right to expect attention. But she did not answer, ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... immediately stepped into the dining-room and the gloomy thoughts fled, for there sat Juliet near the window, sewing. She greeted him with a smile and ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... profaning youngster who dared to shout or play within sound or sight of Deacon Fletcher's premises. Every Saturday night, at sunset, all tools for men and playthings for children were put away, to be disturbed no more till sunset on Sunday. All papers, books, knitting-work, sewing, were disposed of 'out of the way.' It was necessary to milk the cows, feed the pigs, and saddle the horse, but that was all the work that was allowed. As to any jest on any holy day, that was, beyond all other things, most abhorrent to their ideas of Christian duty. Life with them was a continued ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... rim, all round the edge, which was to be inside, making it double the thickness at the edge to what it was in the middle of the board. It is through this ledge or rim they bored the holes, and with a few turns of cinnet sewed tight one board to the other. The sewing only appeared on the inside. Outside all was smooth and neat; and it was only on close inspection you could see that there was a join at all. They had timbers, thwarts, and gunwale, to keep all tight; and over a few feet at the bow and ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... which are at all times saleable here, may be mentioned shirtings, both white and grey, long-cloths, domestics, drills, cambrics, jaconets, twills, white and printed, bobbinet, gimp lace, cotton velvet, sewing thread, cotton twist of certain colours, principally Turkey red, Turkey red cloth, prints of various sorts, chiefly Bengal stripes, furniture prints, and Turkey red chintz prints, kambayas, and ginghams, which being cheaper, are gradually ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... afternoon, Mr. Chrysler found her sitting, book and sewing on her lap and only a rosary about her neck to relieve the modest ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... in heaps of trouble? Too much trouble to stand? Did you? I was that way the day she opened my door. It made me perfectly furious to have her open my door. And she looked so little and so old and so frumpy—she'd been sewing all day for my beastly step-aunt and I'd been trying all day to get the courage to—to—" the girl's tears were streaming now and she didn't bother to wipe them away, she seemed utterly unashamed of them, "to get rid of myself. And just the minute I got the cork out of the bottle that ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... limits, of course, amongst the traders for it; and the fortunate trapper may get three or four hundred dollars in trade for a skin that will fetch eight hundred or a thousand in cash on the London market; but if his wife get the solid advantage of a new cooking-stove or a sewing-machine from it she ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... can do? Is it all utilised? Or if I might use such an illustration, is it like the electricity of the Aurora Borealis, that paints your winter sky with vanishing, useless splendours of crimson and blue? or have you got it harnessed to your tramcars, lighting your houses, driving sewing-machines, doing practical work in your daily life? Is the hope of Heaven, and of being like Christ, a thing that stimulates and stirs us every moment to heroisms of self-surrender and to strenuous ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... are made by sewing tow inside pieces of linen, or folding linen and sewing the pieces together. They are used to keep off pressure from parts such as that caused by splints ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... and black, all were at work, and all were eager; the servants contended for the honor of going with their master; the women flocked to the house to assist in the work of preparation, cutting out and making under-clothes, knitting socks, picking lint, preparing bandages, and sewing on uniforms; for many of the men who had enlisted were of the poorest class, far too poor to furnish anything themselves, and their equipment had to be contributed mainly by wealthier neighbors. The ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... to Mr Lacey's quarters this morning. I was sewing on buttons in the next room, and couldn't help hearing something about odds; and that set me up sharp, for I knows what odds ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... couple of men were sewing the "bricklayer's" body in canvas preparatory to the sea burial. And so with the storm ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... said something incoherent about some sewing which she had to do—some black for the funeral—and was out of the room. She went up to the front chamber which she occupied. Caroline was there. She went close to her and took her hands, and the two sisters looked at ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... purpose of storage places for clothing and seats. A cupboard was built against the wall at the left of the entrance, and between two windows on the south side of the room, which looked out upon The Jug, was a shelf upon which Thomas kept his Bible and Margaret her sewing basket—a little basket which she had woven herself from native grasses. Behind the stove was a bench, upon which stood a bucket of water and the family wash basin, and over the basin hung a towel for general ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... looked up from their lower level as they passed along the rue de la Cite might have seen, on all fine days, the daughter of the Sauviats sitting at her open window, sewing, embroidering, or pricking the needle through the canvas of her worsted-work, with a look that was often dreamy. Her head was vividly defined among the flowers which poetized the brown and crumbling sills of her ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... she led me we found a Miss Somebody—I didn't catch the name,—an unobtrusive, even an indistinct, middle-aged person in black. A companion. All very proper. She came and went and even sat down at times in the room, but a little apart, with some sewing. By the time she had brought in a lighted lamp I had heard all the details which really matter in this story. Between me and her who was once Flora de Barral the conversation was not likely to keep strictly ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... but—I am a Sahib and the son of a Sahib and, which is twice as much more beside, a student of Nucklao. Yess' (here he turned to English), 'a boy of St Xavier's. Damn Mr Lurgan's eyes!—It is some sort of machinery like a sewing-machine. Oh, it is a great cheek of him—we are not frightened that way at Lucknow—No!' Then in Hindi: 'But what does he gain? He is only a trader—I am in his shop. But Creighton Sahib is a Colonel—and I think Creighton Sahib ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... Miss," said Elizabeth, with patient resignation; "you'll find me in the sewing-room, Miss, whenever you are ready for me. It's best that you should go over the things yourself, and then you will be satisfied, ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards |
