"Tidy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her head, for all her bouncings and flinging of pots and kettles when she is in a temper. It is the basement tries her, poor soul. She says she has never been used to it. Her first husband was in the tin trade, and they had a tidy little shop in ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... what is deemed reasonable and right. Representing as it does a living principle, due process is not confined within a permanent catalogue of what may at a given time be deemed the limits of the essentials of fundamental rights. To rely on a tidy formula for the easy determination of what is a fundamental right for purposes of legal enforcement may satisfy a longing for certainty but ignores the movements of a free society. * * * The real clue to the problem confronting ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... everything that she has adored. It is doubtless too soon to judge her, and there are moments when one is willing to forgive her even the restoration of St. Mark's. Inside as well there has been a considerable attempt to make the place more tidy; but the general effect, as yet, has not seriously suffered. What I chiefly remember is the straightening out of that dark and rugged old pavement—those deep undulations of primitive mosaic in which the fond spectator was thought to perceive an intended resemblance to the waves of the ocean. ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... by acting one for his amusement. During the performance, Madame Bertrand sat next to him, and interpreted. He appeared much amused, and laughed very heartily at our ladies, who were personated by great strapping fellows dressed in women's clothes, and not in the most tidy fashion. He had the patience to remain to the end of the third act, though, when attending the Opera at Paris, he had always retired at the ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... And then a very tidy little modern carriage bustled up the road, a brougham made for a pair of horses which was well known to all hunting men in these parts. It was very unpretending in its colour and harness; but no vehicle more appropriate to its ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... started out of bed, washed and dressed, made their beds, rubbed their metal chamber-service as bright as silver—a remarkable contrast in that respect to the metal dinner dishes—dusted and cleaned the ward, which was usually kept remarkably tidy and clean. About half-past six breakfast was on the table. This meal consisted of very weak tea and dry bread for the majority, with an egg, or half-an-ounce of butter for the few who were supposed to be dangerously ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... your tackle-book neat and tidy, you will always have your silks, hooks, lines, flies, &c. in their proper places. When the twine that holds your two-piece Rod together has been thoroughly wet, then when dry, and before using it again, wax well. ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... corner. The mistress insisted on cleanliness in her servants, but Mashutka had no gift for keeping herself spotless. When her hands were clean she could do nothing, but felt as if everything would slip through her fingers. If she was told to do her hair on Sunday, to wash and to put on tidy clothes, she felt the whole day as if she had been sewn into a sack. She only seemed to be happy when, smeared and wet with washing the boards, the windows, the silver, or the doors, she had become almost unrecognisable, and had, if she wanted to rub ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... minutes, when he had made the cabin tidy for the reception of "Massa Cap'n Passford," he transferred his labors to the stateroom. He worked in the berth and all its surroundings, including the desk, which still contained the real commander's papers, and then gave his attention to the ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... delicacy will teach you the desirability of keeping your room tidy, and your articles of dress and toilet as much in order as possible. If there is a deficiency of servants, a lady will certainly not hesitate to make her own bed, and to do for herself as much as possible, ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... not doubt, Juve, but that they tidy up your study every morning; but, here are twenty-five cigarette ends, lying side by side: you certainly have not smoked all those in one morning, consequently you have lighted them during the night, and consequently you ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... few years, beginning, I believe, in Massachusetts, the more thoughtful of those whose affections are centred in their village homes have united in organized efforts to make their villages more tidy, to interest all classes of society in attention to those little details the neglect of which is fatal, and to make the village, what it certainly should be, an expression of the interest of its people in their homes and in the surroundings ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... the wub said absently, staring around the room. "A nice apartment you have here, Captain. You keep it quite neat. I respect life-forms that are tidy. Some Martian birds are quite tidy. They throw things out of their ...
— Beyond Lies the Wub • Philip Kindred Dick
... It is from this peculiarity that the raccoon derives its specific name of Lotor (washer). It does not always moisten its morsel thus, but pretty generally. It is fond, moreover, of frequent ablutions, and no animal is more clean and tidy ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... fireplace. The flames leapt eagerly about a great oak log which hissed fitfully on top of the glowing coals contained in the big iron fire-basket. The grate was bare and tidy. As the young man looked at the fire, a little whirl of blue smoke whisked out of the wide fireplace and eddied into the room. Robin sniffed. The room smelt smoky. Now he remembered he had noticed ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... your father's omelette,' said the stepmother, 'while you tidy yourself for breakfast. I think there's some water on the washstand, and Vernon shall bring you a ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... than being bored. A library certainly ought to have books in it, not boots only, as in Thackeray's country snob's house, but so ought each and every room in the house more or less; also, though all rooms should look tidy, and even very tidy, they ought ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... Tidy, like—tidy. You see, I have had two goes over the chaps in horspittle, and one can't ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... romance of the English press, many a young man of my day was enticed away from a modest competency, to seek his fortune here, where it was pretended that nuggets could be gathered like cabbages—I myself threw up a tidy little country practice.... I might mention that medicine was my profession. It would have given me intense satisfaction, Mr. Turnham, to see one of those glib journalists in my shoes, or the shoes of some of my messmates on the OCEAN ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... my cell to be picked by my industrious fingers had all been removed the previous evening, lest I should desecrate the sacred day by pursuing my ordinary avocation. My apartment was therefore clean and tidy, and by the aid of a bit of dubbin I managed to give an air of newness to my well-worn shoes. The attendants had, however, omitted to provide me with a Sunday suit, so I was obliged to don my working clothes, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... Miss Somers, "I fancy you forgot that we promised to pay you a visit this evening; but you need not blush so much, there is no great harm done; we have only been here about five minutes and we have been admiring your neat garden and your tidy shelves. Is it you, Susan, who keeps these things in such nice order?" went on Miss ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... always is more consistent with the spirit of worship than is extravagance. But contrast the difference in effect on children of a bare, untidy, makeshift room as against a cozy room decorated with a few beautiful pictures or draperies and made homelike with comfortable seats and tidy arrangement. ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... was, and how many people had a hard life there—all the details that she thought likely to interest Lisbeth. The old woman listened, and forgot to be fretful, unconsciously subject to the soothing influence of Dinah's face and voice. After a while she was persuaded to let the kitchen be made tidy; for Dinah was bent on this, believing that the sense of order and quietude around her would help in disposing Lisbeth to join in the prayer she longed to pour forth at her side. Seth, meanwhile, went out to chop wood, for he surmised that Dinah would like to be left alone ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... a farmer has a tidy sum of money on deposit with the bank at one per cent., if he wants to employ a sum for a short time, say for the purchase of cattle, he prefers to raise the money on a bill at ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... Dr Proudie is a good-looking man; spruce and dapper, and very tidy. He is somewhat below middle height, being about five feet four; but he makes up for the inches which he wants by the dignity with which he carries those which he has. It is no fault of his own if he has not a commanding eye, for he studies hard to assume ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of people in this country who make a living in the newspaper field. Apart from the regular toilers there are thousands of men and women who make newspaper work a side issue, who add tidy sums of "pin money" to their incomes by occasional contributions to the daily, weekly and monthly press. Most of these people are only persons of ordinary, everyday ability, having just enough education to ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... were twenty, my Postumus, we kept In tidy rooms in College, and there we snugly slept. And still, when I am dreaming, the bells I can recall That ordered us to chapel or welcomed us to hall. The towers repeat our voices, the grey and ancient Courts Are filled with mirth and movement, and echo to our sports; ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... was something beautiful and breakable. Dusk-white face; little tidy nose and mouth; dark hair and eyes like the minnows swimming under the green water. But Jerrold's face was strong; and he had funny eyes that made you keep looking at him. They were blue. Not tiresomely blue, blue all the time, like his mother's, ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... a finger, "Hush! she's asleep. Let us tidy up the room. I don't think she is going to wake up for a long time yet. And then she'll have to wait till the world ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... discourses to the universal delight. Conversation is his chief pleasure, and he will keep it up till midnight if he finds a companion. Me he has often taken with him on his walks, and talks all the time of Christ. He hates coarse language, furniture, dress, food, books, all clean and tidy, but scrupulously plain; and he wears grey woollen when priests generally go in purple. With the large fortune which he inherited from his father, he founded and endowed a school at St. Paul's entirely at his own cost— ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... is done, a darning screen is wonderfully commodious. Its conveniences consist of two capacious pockets, to hold stockings or any garment fresh from the laundry and needing attention; a handy shelf whereon to place one's sewing, a tidy little cushion with scissors and loosely swung ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... servant who has just finished dressing her; —awe-struck, full of love and wonder, putting her hand softly on the child's head, who has never cried. The nurse, who has just taken her, is—the nurse, and no more: tidy in the extreme, and greatly proud and pleased: but would be as much ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... armed with Klingemann's letter, I eagerly went to his residence—a quiet, well-appointed house near the Promenade. I was admitted without delay, and shown into the composer's room. It was plainly a musician's work-room, yet it had a note of elegance that surprised me. Musicians are not a tidy race; but here there was none of the admired disorder that one instinctively associates with an artist's sanctum. There was no litter. The well-used pianoforte could be approached without circuitous negotiation of a rampart of books and papers, ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... Mark Carter Economyward had passed out of hearing, Jane Duncannon in a neat brown dress with a little round brown ribboned hat set trimly on her rippley hair, and a little round basket on her arm covered daintily with a white napkin, was nipping out her tidy front gate between the sunflowers and asters and tripping down Maple street as if it had been on her mind to go ever since ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... investigated this subject. The water was collected in mid-channel between Newhaven and Dieppe by the engineers of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway in stoppered glass carboys. The author has used the combustion method, the albuminoid ammonia, and in some cases the oxygen process of Prof. Tidy. To determine how the various methods of water-analysis were effected by a change of the organic matter from organic compounds in solution to organisms in suspension, some experiments were made with hay-infusion. The results confirm those ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... morning we should be all ill if we passed another night in that way; so he and Biddy have been putting up the beds, and getting the upstairs rooms in order, and Mollie was sent down to make the dining-room a little tidy.' ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... I remember I cried when her people moved to Chicago and she left school. I didn't see her for almost ten years: then I met her accidentally on Randolph street in Chicago. She knew me, and insisted on my going out with her to see her home. It was in the suburbs, and was a very pretty, tidy little place, with a garden in front, where Martha raised vegetables, and a little plot for flowers. She was so proud of it all and of her two pretty babies, and showed me her chickens and her furniture and a picture of her husband. They had bought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... principality. It has been a great pleasure to retain a certain hold upon it for so many years; and since in the natural course of things it must at length pass into other hands, it is a gratification to see the old place making itself tidy for a new tenant, like some venerable dame who is getting ready to entertain a neighbor of condition. Not long since a new cap of shingles adorned this ancient mother among the village—now city—mansions. She has dressed herself in brighter colors than she has hitherto worn, so they tell me, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in which my hens live are almost as clean as the one I inhabit (and Polly is tidy to a degree); their food is as carefully prepared as mine, and more punctually served; their enemies are fended off, and they are never frightened by dogs or other animals, for the five-acre lot on which their houses and runs are built is enclosed by a substantial ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... the face was singularly pretty, glanced graciously towards the husband, and said, "I see the likeness!" then to Sophy, "I fear you are tired, my dear: you must not overfatigue yourself; and you must take milk fresh from the cow every morning." And now the bailiff's wife came briskly out, a tidy, fresh-coloured, kind-faced woman, fond of children; the more so because she had ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... place and Tarascon is fertile and well cultivated, and the cheerfulness of its aspect presents a striking contrast to the silence and solitude of the town. The streets, however, are as clean as those of Holland, and the inhabitants are neat and tidy ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... sighed poor Head-nurse as she put herself tidy; but after all it was not such a failure, since, either from putting two and two together, or by mere chance, Tumbu appeared the very next day barking and frolicking after his usual fashion when he wanted them to go out, and then led them straight to a lonely corner of ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... that disturbed her was the comfort and arrangement of everything. Certainly the drawing-room had not been very orderly, full of old things badly placed, but this bedroom was clean and tidy, and the supper last night, so neat on its tray with everything that she could want! She could feel the order and discipline of the whole house. And she had never, in all her life, been either orderly ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... beautiful large suite together on the third floor, with a bath all their own, and a maid to wait upon them. Grace was used to this; but she was a very simple-minded girl, and the presence of a tidy, be-aproned and be-capped maid not much older than herself, did not particularly impress Grace one ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... cheeky little orange tongues. She sang and shouted for joy, and a feeling half sadness, half exhilaration, that comes to us often at the twilight, came over her. She wore a little red skirt and loose cotton blouse, and a tidy pinafore put on in order to cover her soiled frock on the way home. Her hair was ash blonde, and braided in two plaits round her head. Her eyes were dark and deep-set, and were a strange contrast to her hair. She passed over the tiny bridge where the brook crosses the field, and gathered ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... christened, the rector deciding that a double baptism was the lesser risk to incur; and on this occasion Silas, making himself as clean and tidy as he could, appeared for the first time within the church, and shared in the observances held sacred by his neighbours. He was quite unable, by means of anything he heard or saw, to identify the Raveloe religion with his old faith; if he could at any time in his previous life have done so, ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... so little - a couple of tidy rooms with few ugly things and one or two objects of beauty, a small garden plot with flowers, some sunlight by day, some lamplight cheer at night, enough to eat, and quiet and serenity for study - and all the hours spent together were ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... forget yourself," said Miss Leigh. "This lady has a very young infant, and cannot do without the aid of her nurse. A decent, tidy young woman is not quite such a nuisance as the noisy black boy that Mrs. Dalton has entailed ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... agreeably surprised to get as much as a quarter of a can of hot water; and Heathcote, as he polished up the lace boots, felt he had begun well. His new master said little or nothing to him, as he put the study tidy, arranged the books, and got out the cup and saucer and coffee-pot ready for the ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... money has been once so intended; suppose it kept its destination. About L500 would put up a tidy little industrial school, and you might not object to have a scholarship or two for some of our little —th Highlander lassies whose fathers won't make orphans of them for the regular military charities. What, crying, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hert greet tae see him," Mrs. Macfadyen said to me one day, "sae booed an' disjackit, him that wes that snod (tidy) and firm. His hair's turned white in a month, and he's awa' tae naething in his claithes. But least said is sunest mended. It's no richt tae interfere wi' another's sorrow, an' it wad be an awfu' sin tae misca' a young lassie. We maun juist houp that Flora 'll sune come back, for if she disna Lachlan ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... Hospice, on coming to verify the little book, signed the new contract as witness for Hubert, by which the latter promised to treat the child kindly, to keep her tidy, to send her to school and to church, and to give her a good bed to herself. On the other side, the Administration agreed to pay him all indemnities, and to give the child certain stipulated articles of clothing, as ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... end strong-armed guards were brought in from the camps, and as the boys were just about tired anyway of their self-appointed policemanship, things soon quieted down. There were rumors that it cost the Australian Government a tidy sum of money, but the burning of those pest-houses must have risen like incense to heaven, and one very good effect it had, about which there will be no dispute—it put the fear of God into the Gyppo, and Australian soldiers ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... said he good-naturedly. 'Meggie, I had no intention of leaving you that day, though I was yawning myself to death in Harvie; but I sees a whaler, and I thinks, "That's a tidy boat, and I'm a tidy man, and if they'll take me and ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... ribbons, and, alack! Farewell my tidy drag; Mail-coach-men now have got the sack, ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... talk no politics. They ain't no good to nobody, except the big 'uns, wot gets their living thereby; and I should think you'd had dose enough on 'em to last for a month of Sundays. So just get yourself tidy, there's a lad, and come ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... self-depreciating flurry which sometimes seemed to conceal a deep and abiding calm. She had little worldly theories, too, which she often enunciated in her confidential manner; and one of these was that one should always, in all places and at all times, be neat and tidy, for no one knows whom one may meet. And, be it noted in passing, there have been many successful human careers ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... patrol outside though, and not to venture farther unless there is a commotion. But it is the duty of the non-commissioned officer in whose charge a hut may be to see that the prisoners keep the place tidy, to watch them carefully, and to observe if they show signs of ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... of our tale was perhaps not altogether in her favour. She was about sixty years of age and was very stout and short in the neck. She wore her own gray hair, which at dinner was always tidy enough; but during the 'whole day previous to that hour she might be seen with it escaping from under her cap in extreme disorder. Her eyebrows were large and bushy, but those alone would not have given ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope
... great fun to watch Jip, the dog, sweeping his tail over the floor with a rag tied onto it for a broom. After a little they got to do the work so well that the Doctor said that he had never had his house kept so tidy ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... they'd laugh," said the cap'n stoutly. His eyes were glowing with the surprise of it and the happy anticipation of Mariana's tidy ways. "Nobody laughed at me an' Mandy; leastways if they did, I never got hold ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... because I have something to say and something to ask. In the first place, I am better. Mr. Harness, who, God bless him, left that Temple of Art, the Deepdene, and Mr. Hope's delightful conversation, to come and take care of me, stayed at Swallowfield three weeks. He found out a tidy lodging, which he has retained, and he promises to come back in November; at present he is again at the Deepdene. Nothing could be so judicious as his way of going on; he came at two o'clock to my cottage and we drove out together; then he went to his lodgings to ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... them and learn to be an Indian? Don't for heaven's sake sentimentalise! Go home and sleep like a rational creature. Come in by eleven to-morrow. Even without the title you'll be a splendid match for Mrs. Wybert, and she must have a tidy lot ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... an ever-freshening breeze of wind that soon began to puff and gust. The cloud stuff flying across the sky foretold us of a gale. By midday Arnold Bentham fainted at the steering, and, ere the boat could broach in the tidy sea already running, Captain Nicholl and I were at the steering sweep with all the four of our weak hands upon it. We came to an agreement, and, just as Captain Nicholl had drawn the first lot by virtue of his office, so now he took the first spell at steering. Thereafter the three of us ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... town, and makes little less difference to the Corn-market and High Street, than the turning the course of the Thames would do to Westminster and Wapping. Who is to keep the beautiful roads by Henley and High Wickham in repair? And who is to restore a value to the inns at the tidy comfortable towns along the line? Will the prosperity of Steveton bring back the gaieties of Tetsworth or Beaconsfield, and the numerous villages within an easy distance of the road? We repeat it—the towns which formerly enjoyed the natural advantages of their geographical position, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... be any New York fortune in it, but it ought to be a pretty tidy bit," he said. "Now, if we could only get Langdon interested, directly or indirectly, in a financial way, that would ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... by visitors that her surroundings had not the spick-and-span appearance which usually characterises a Scottish Mission station. She had, nevertheless, a real appreciation of order and beauty, and liked to have everything clean and tidy about her. How to accomplish this was her daily problem, and perhaps only those who have lived in tropical lands can understand the position. The difficulty there is not how to make things grow, but how to prevent them growing. She waged as fierce and incessant a war with ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... the instance of his Machiavellian successor. In 1642 the fort was strengthened by additional artillery because of an expected visit from the Dutch. Today a soldier in a khaki uniform mounts guard at the street entrance. The courtyard is adorned by pyramids of cannon-balls and tidy rows of bonga-trees. The soldiers' quarters line the avenue on either side, and bugle-calls resound where formerly was heard the call ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... been living at Dr. Wm. Bayards' three years—chambermaid—that is enough to assure me she is a good girl. I think she wears her dress too tight. I unloosened her laces and underskirts to make them easy; they are all neat and tidy, as if she had come ...
— Diary Written in the Provincial Lunatic Asylum • Mary Huestis Pengilly
... remarkably tidy." Jernyngham broke into a rueful smile. "I believe she started for the settlement when I was at work in the summer fallow this morning. The fact that the horse and buggy are ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... were passing was that technically described by novelists as "smiling." That is to say, it was pretty, in a mild sort of way, clean, green, with tidy farmhouses and cottages, and fields about ripe for the harvest. Plenty of orchards there were too, with lots of fruit-trees alongside the roads, and the people were most kind in offering us fruit and milk and water ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... inmate of the house, my pumps were suffered to remain, untouched, where I had first happened to throw them. I remembered, however, that after awhile I had missed them from their accustomed place; but the matter gave me no concern, supposing that Tinor—like any other tidy housewife, having come across them in some of her domestic occupations—had pitched the useless things out of the house. But I was ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... in charge, and told him to get the hatches off and begin to get up the cargo as soon as he had stowed the sails and made all tidy; for I had not waited for that, but had rowed ashore as soon as the anchor was dropped. So without going back to the brig I crossed the river and landed by the steps at the bridge, and took the letters to the merchants for whom I had goods, and prayed them to send off boats immediately, ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... Then don't be silly. And take this key, and go and tidy up that ridiculous room of yours, and when it's nice and clean, and when you've shaved off that absurd beard, ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... boots and "mitts," and now, without a word or even a look being exchanged upon the subject, she sat there in the corner, by the dim, seal-oil light, sewing on new thongs, patching up holes, and making the strange men tidy—men she had never seen before and would never see again. And this, no tribute to the Colonel's generosity or the youth and friendly manners of the Boy. They knew the old squaw would have done just the same had the mucklucks and the mitts belonged to "the tramp of the Yukon," ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... toilette. Mrs. Cass had laughingly forewarned me that not only calico shirts but patch-work pillow-cases were an indispensable part of a travelling equipment; and, thanks to the taste and skill of some tidy little Frenchwoman, I found our divan-pillows all accommodated in the brightest and most ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... which led to the house, it would probably be on the house side of the green, and on the outside of the ditch. The most obvious place at which to begin the search was the shed where the bowls were kept. It was a tidy place as anything in Mark's establishment would be. There were two boxes of croquet things, one of them with the lid open, as if the balls and mallets and, hoops (neatly enough put away, though) had been recently used; a box of bowls, a small lawn-mower, a roller ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... hill rise on the far side of the Mangadone Cantonment was the bungalow of Hartley, Head of the Police. It was a tidy, well-kept house, the house of a bachelor who had an eye to things himself and who was well served by competent servants. Hartley had reached the age of forty without having married, and he was solid of ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... sprinkled over it. I hate to go down on the street to get it. Who wears the diamonds in this town? Why, Winnie, the Wiretapper's wife, and Bella, the Buncosteerer's bride. New Yorkers can be worked easier than a blue rose on a tidy. The only thing that bothers me is I know I'll break the cigars in my vest pocket when I get my clothes all full ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... be a matter of time and difficulty. Taking pity on his forlorn state, I offered him the shelter of my own roof for the night, an offer he was not slow to accept, remarking that one gentleman should help another; and that if I had any "tidy brandy" he would be able to get on well enough until to-morrow. So we set out for my ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... carriages a plenty and entertained hospitably. They did not use red cotton table-cloths (which Grandma Ridge insisted upon to save washing), and if there were few men-servants, there was an abundance of tidy maids. It gave Milly unconsciously a conception of how people lived in circles remote from West Laurence Avenue, and behind her pretty eyes there formed a blind purpose of pushing on into this unknown territory. "I had ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... have already erected ranges of workmen's dwellings in many parts of the metropolis,—which will from time to time be extended to other parts. The Peabody dwellings furnish an example of what working men's dwellings ought to be. They are clean, tidy, and comfortable homes. They have diminished drunkenness; they have promoted morality. Mr. Peabody intended that his bounty should "directly ameliorate the condition and augment the comforts of the poor," and he hoped that the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... Her eyes lit up as Marie bent down and opened the oven door. A delicious hot fragrance blew out into the tidy kitchen. "My, somet'ing smell good!" She turned to Alexandra with a wink, her three yellow teeth making a brave show, "I ta-ank dat stop my yaw from ache no more!" ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... pouches, wherein he kept his mull for rappee, and his tobacco-box. To look at him, with his rig-and-fur Shetland hose pulled up over his knees, and his big glancing buckles in his shoon, sitting at our door-cheek, clean and tidy as he was kept, was just as if one of the ancient patriarchs had been left on earth, to let succeeding survivors witness a picture of hoary and venerable eld. Poor body, many a bit Gibraltar-rock and gingerbread ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... probably sell the Circle Bar," he said finally. "Your father told me before he died that he had been offered ten dollars an acre for his land. That would total to a tidy sum." ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... here," begged Miss Gibbs, who was still endeavouring to make herself tidy. "I'm such a sight, playing with the dog—but you go, Toni ... and ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... am keeping in so much," she said; "and—and, oh! I do wish you were not all quite so tidy. I am just mad for somebody to be wild and unkempt. I feel that I could take down my hair, or tear a rent in my dress—anything rather than the neatness. Oh! I hate your landscapes, and your trim hedges, and your trim house, ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... Kid. It might have been awkward if she had. As a matter of fact, they became close companions at sight. There were certain affinities between them. Elizabeth, for example, although perhaps not so habitually sticky as The Kid, like her didn't seem able to remain clean or tidy for longer than half an hour at a time. Also, Elizabeth believing in Signs, The Kid revered her for her mysticism—about the only person who ever did. She used to beg to be allowed to study her Dream Book, and every evening before bedtime would go into the kitchen and—sitting amid that ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... as much distracted! It is a provision of Nature that there should be some tidy ones, or what ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... big job, chief, but there is no doubt we must lay in a great store of it. Well, there is plenty of timber down in the valley, and with ten horses we can bring up a tidy lot ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... written. If Mr. Darwin had dealt thus with us we should have readily condoned all the mistakes he would have been at all likely to have made, for we should have known him as one who was trying to help us, tidy us up, keep us straight, and enable us to use our judgments to the best advantage. The public will forgive many errors alike of taste and judgment, where it feels that a ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... any chance of old Lord turning up his toes,' said Beatrice thoughtfully. 'I dare say he'll leave a tidy handful behind him, but then he may live ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... an unkind word. They grow in grace, partly because they return as many of these favors as is possible at their age. They water the plants, clean the bird's cage and fill the seed cups and bath; they keep the room as tidy as possible to make the janitor's work easier; they brush up the floor after their own muddy feet; the older ones help the younger and the strong look after the weak. The conditions are almost ideal; why should they not ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Gabrielle Tescheron, I am for giving woman the largest liberty in all matters; let her have suffrage if she will take it. I am for giving woman everything—just let her run loose, here, there and everywhere, and then you'll see the world tidy up. It's time the worldliness of the world was viewed with fresh eyes. Woman, so long held in restraint, in many ways is a better observer than conventional man. She is like a countryman newly arrived ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... fine weather; I may not have such another. I wish to have the comfort of thinking when I am away, that I have left you with everything necessary to the keeping up of good habits—everything that will make them pleasant and easy. I wish you to be always neat, and tidy, and industrious; depending upon others as little as possible; and careful to improve yourself by every means, and especially by writing to me. I will leave you no excuse, Ellen, for failing in any of these duties. I trust you will not disappoint me ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... your things upstairs and make sure where your rooms are, and tidy up if you want to," said Mr. Lenox's young brother, "and then hop down, and we'll take you to see the caravan, and show you about a little, and perhaps go on the river; and in the evening we're going to have supper in my rooms. Fizzy's going ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... washed her face and hands, made her hair tidy, and put on a fresh white linen collar, and soon after nine o'clock, with the manuscript in her hand, she ran downstairs, and presently knocked at the door of No. 17. The brisk voice of Miss Franks said: "Come in!" ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... collars disappeared from the room and turned up washed and ironed and laid tidily on my table. I used to keep an eye out, but could never catch anybody near my room. I straightened up, and kept my room a bit tidy, and when my handkerchief got too dirty, and I was ashamed of letting it go to the wash, I'd slip down to the river after dark and wash it out, and dry it next day, and rub it up to look as if it hadn't been washed, ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... like his ma's folks," she continued, when he had enumerated their gifts. "I am glad fer him that his pa and his stepmother was so scrimpin'. David, would you b'lieve it, in that great big house of the Forbeses thar wa'n't never a tidy on a chair, and not a picter on the wall! It was mighty lucky for Joe that his stepmother died fust, so he got all ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... seniors, and the moment was perilous. The discussion was forming their discontents into a dangerously avowed state, if it had the beneficial effect of raising their spirits by force of sympathy. At any rate, they were in no gloomy mood when they reached the tidy little villa, with its beds of open- hearted crocuses defying the cold wind, and admitting the sun to the utmost depths of their purple and golden bosoms, as ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no use for you-alls to stop here. The Injuns have got this section combed out clean. You couldn't get enough plumes around here to pay for your bacon. Now, I knows of a tidy little island 'bout twelve miles south of here where there's stacks of the birds. If you start right now you'll hit it before them pesky varmints of redskins find it. I'm telling you in pay for that tobacco. Max ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... There were traditions of other housekeepers. But since the death of Hope's mother Mrs. Simcoe was the only incumbent. She had been Mrs. Wayne's nurse in her last moments, and had rocked the little Hope to sleep the night after her mother's burial. She was always tidy, erect, imperturbable. She pervaded the house; and her eye was upon a table-cloth, a pane of glass, or a carpet, almost as soon as the spot which arrested it. Housekeeper nascitur non fit. She was so silent and shadowy that the whole house sympathized with her, until ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... a snug little cottage by a brook under a hill, lived an old widow and her only child. She was a tidy, pleasant-faced dame, was "Old Mother Growser;" and as to her boy, there wasn't a brighter lad of his age in all the village. His real name was James, but he had always been so spry and handy that ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... useless. If women do that which is of no value, their work is honorable. If they do practical work, it is dishonorable. That our young women may escape the censure of doing dishonorable work, I shall particularize. You may knit a tidy for the back of an armchair, but by no means make the money wherewith to buy the chair. You may, with delicate brush, beautify a mantel-ornament, but die rather than earn enough to buy a marble mantel. You may learn artistic music until you can squall Italian, but never sing ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... and placed in the Mausoleum. Hiwilani had an old retainer, Ahuna. She stole the key from Kanau one night, and made Ahuna go and steal her father's bones out of the Mausoleum. I know. And he must have been a giant. She kept him in one of her big jars. One day, when I was a tidy size of a lad, and curious to know if Kaaukuu was as big as tradition had him, I fished his intact lower jaw out of the jar, and the wrappings, and tried it on. I stuck my head right through it, and it rested around my neck and on my shoulders like a horse collar. And every tooth was in the jaw, ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... folded away all his possessions into the depths of his trunk, and when at last the chaotic mass of belongings had crept into a tidy space, he looked around—that last surveying glance one gives to see that nothing has been left out. Nothing had been left out, so he took down his overcoat, that was hanging on a peg behind the door, and he began ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... go into action with a lot of bales and cases hamperin' their movements; but now that they've got everything snugly stowed under hatches, they're comin' down to try conclusions with us; and if they really mean business we've a very tidy ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... however, all was very quiet round the old inn. The birds were singing, and the bees humming in the pleasant sunshine. The house looked clean and tidy, and no one was to be seen except three persons bending over a table, with their heads close together, deeply absorbed in whatever business they were engaged in. Two of these persons were Dame Bedard, the sharp landlady of the Crown of France, and her no less ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... three horses to care for and her husband needed more help than he could hire, she had brought her little baby Patsy to the stable while she worked there like a man; that during all this time she had cooked and washed and kept the house tidy for four people; that she had done all these things she felt would not count now with the Union, though each member of it was a bread-winner ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... pestilential hearts. It is the immemorial custom of the desert not to bury dead camels or horses but to let them lie. Then you know where you are and the sun soon cooks the carcases till they become inoffensive. This is, however, repugnant to the tidy minds of European sanitary experts, who give orders for the burial of the deceased. The wiser Egyptian is overruled and has to do the burying. Now it takes a simply monstrous hole to hold a camel, and the result of the clash of English ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... messes, the adjutant and I still clinging to the household of William Washington,—William the quiet and the courteous, the pattern of house-servants, William the noiseless, the observing, the discriminating, who knows everything that can be got and how to cook it. William and his tidy, lady-like little spouse Hetty—a pair of wedded lovers, if ever I saw one—set our table in their one room, half-way between an unglazed window and a large wood-fire, such as is often welcome. Thanks to the adjutant, we are provided with the social magnificence of napkins; while (lest pride take ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... person himself. When a man becomes inwardly changed and filled with new ambitions, ideals and hopes, he, in course of time, rises above his sordid surroundings and attracts to himself an environment that corresponds to his new state of mind. It would be useless to tidy up the house of a slut for her, for she would soon make it like a pig-sty again, but if you could get a new ideal of neatness, cleanliness, order and spotlessness into her mind, she would not rest satisfied until her immediate environment corresponded, in some ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... cutting away at the beef. "I've seen them buryin' a chief up the Aruwimi River, and they ate a hippo that must have weighed as much as a tribe. There are some of them down New Guinea way that eat the late-lamented himself, just by way of a last tidy up. Well, of all the funeral feasts on this earth, I suppose the one we are takin' ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... years. He withdrew his savings from the Explosion City Third Federal Bank, stopped in a display room and informed a somewhat surprised clerk he was taking the electric runabout with the blue bonnet. The ground-car, complete with extras, retailed for a tidy ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... source of grumbling, this; for the old lady would come down to breakfast many a morning, and then go up again before she had it, thinking it was already late in the day. She worried the pensionnaires to death, too. It was their duty to keep the salon tidy, and Miss Waghorn would flutter into the room as early as eight o'clock, find the furniture still unarranged, and at once dart out again to scold the girls. These interviews were amusing before they became ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... have known you!" exclaimed the good woman, surveying the boy with great satisfaction; for, though still very thin and tired, the lad had a tidy look that pleased her, and a lively way of moving about in his clothes, like an eel in a skin rather too big for him. The merry black eyes seemed to see everything, the voice had an honest sound, and the sun-burnt face looked several ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... blue-eyed treasure must live, yet yielding cheerfully to the busy smiling English women who had crossed the ocean with her, and now with womanly intuition ministered to her needs. We can picture them making tidy the confused household, and stilling the cries of the infant as they prepare her to receive the sign of the cross. We can almost picture them deliberating over a choice from among their limited supply of vessels of one worthy to become the receptacle of the water to be ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... seemed to vex her more than anything else. Then she scolded us all in a lump together. "Dame Hilda, what an untidy chamber!"—she usually began in that way—"why don't you make these children put their playthings tidy? (Of course Dame Hilda did, at the end of the day; but how could we have playthings tidy while we were playing with them?) Meg, your hair is no better than a mop! Jack, how got you that rent in your sleeve? ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... "it is one of two things. Either we've been gloriously faked, or we've been let in on a very tidy little crime." ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "There's a tidy few. But it's nothin' like Montana. You ought ter get Rifle-Eye Bill to tell you of the old days o' the sheep an' cattle war. The debates were considerable fervent an' plenty frequent, an' a Winchester or two made it seem emphatic a ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... downstairs, she would find the house tidy, but dirty. She could not rest until she had thoroughly cleaned; so she went down to the ash-pit with her dustpan. Mrs. Kirk, spying her, would contrive to have to go to her own coal-place at that minute. Then, across the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... children to put on pinafores and tidy their hair, washed Rowley's hands, and seated him in his high chair at the table, then made herself so useful in passing bread and butter, spreading jam, and handing round mugs of milk, that Mary gave a heartfelt ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Sinclair with provoking calm, "you sure put up a tidy bluff. Maybe you'd tell a judge that you knowed all these gents behind their masks, but they wouldn't be no ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... little money, had showed, perhaps, a certain talent for hedge carpentering or thatching, become tinkers, or even blacksmiths. In such capacities a man may save a little money—not much, perhaps L30 or L40 at furthest. With the aid of this he manages to build a very tidy cottage, in the face of the statement made by architects and builders that a good cottage cannot be erected under L120. Their dwellings do not, indeed, compete with the neat, prim, and business-like work of the professional builder; but still they are roomy and substantial cottages. The secret ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... Rose, attempting to snatch it from me, exclaimed, 'Let alone, missis—let be—what for you lift wood—you have nigger enough, missis, to do it!' I hereupon had to explain to them my view of the purposes for which hands and arms were appended to our bodies, and forthwith began making Rose tidy up the miserable apartment, removing all the filth and rubbish from the floor that could be removed, folding up in piles the blankets of the patients who were not using them, and placing, in rather more sheltered and comfortable positions, those who were ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... this place seemed too tidy . . . MUCH too tidy for James A. to be living here, unless he has greatly changed since I knew him," chirped the little lady. "Is it true that James A. is going to be married to some woman ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a corner of Cynthia's nursery. And it was not in the best corner either. It was in the corner behind the door, and that was not at all a fashionable neighborhood. Racketty-Packetty House had been pushed there to be out of the way when Tidy Castle was brought in, on Cynthia's birthday. As soon as she saw Tidy Castle Cynthia did not care for Racketty-Packetty House and indeed was quite ashamed of it. She thought the corner behind the door quite good enough for such a shabby old dolls' house, when ...
— Racketty-Packetty House • Frances H. Burnett
... Barb's much less strong-minded sister had at least a good share of her practical nicety. The little board path to the door was clean and white still, with possibly a trifle less brilliant effect. The room and its old inhabitants were very comfortable and tidy the patchwork counterpane as gay as ever. Mrs. Elster was alone, keeping company with a snug little wood fire, which was near as much needed in that early spring weather as it ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... just like Madame Henri's geraniums! And it must be guarded, too, from those who would break in and steal what belongs in the home—or tear it down and make a ruin of it! And it must know its neighbors and work with them to keep everything peaceful and tidy about the whole street of nations! Don't you remember how I had to argue with Signora Ferocci to make her clean up her ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... me he has planted a bunch of change, and a gentleman friend of mine gave him a few tips on the market, and he's got what he claims is a tidy sum. He's talking about taking a trip to Europe. Such a chance. What license have we in that neck of woods? I told him to take a ride over the Williamsburg bridge and that would give him all the ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... in the brigade, and had to wait for an hour before a start was made. Our party worked through the forenoon, picking up all litter, looking after sinks, burying dead animals and doing whatever came in view to make our section of the country sanitary and look tidy. This performed we returned to our respective regiments. Having dismissed my detail, I was going to my tent when Sergeant Major Greig sang out, "Sergeant Fuller, the colonel says you may consider yourself under arrest, and you will confine ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... PICKLES.—Nothing shows more, perhaps, the difference between a tidy thrifty housewife and a lady to whom these desirable epithets may not honestly be applied, than the appearance of their respective store-closets. The former is able, the moment anything; is wanted, to put her hand on it at once; no time is lost, no vexation incurred, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... said Christina with condescension. "It has actually something of what one misses here so much—a certain cosy look! Tidy it is too! As you say, Mercy, it might be in England —only for the poverty of its trees.—And oh those wretched bare hills!" she added, as she ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... and there be folks as says he was once as neat and tidy as a new sixpence. Now he's as dirty as a ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... were asked to take in one or more of the servants. Among those who gave lodgings to the retinue were our good couple, who took in a lodger, for whom they were paid handsomely. The wife quickly prepared a clean, tidy bed, and did her best to ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... thing he'll want to do is to tidy up his property and pacify the tenants," said Dr. Aherne, in his small, piping voice. "They're not too pleased with the way they are now. The Major was rather short with some of them, now and again. There was ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... up in Crown Office Row, In Crown Office Row e'er the courts had sat, They saw the solicitors passing below, And the briefs that were rolled up so tidy and fat, For ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... idiot as quick as you can," I whispered. "I'm going straight to Scotland Yard myself. Let your wife tidy the place while I'm gone, and have the lock mended before she leaves. I'm going as ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung |
