"Ironing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ironing board, yellow-face," warned Darrin, and something in the young third classman's face showed Chow that it ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... opaque-looking window. Caleb's bench and tools were placed just underneath it, and above his head a linnet hopped and twittered in a green cage. Kit's perambulator occupied one corner, while Kit herself, seated at the table in a high chair, was busily engaged in ironing out some ragged doll-garments with a tiny bent flat-iron. Anna regarded her pitifully—the small shrunken figure and sunken chest, and the thin white face with its halo of red curls. But Kit was almost too absorbed with her endeavour to get the creases out of a doll's petticoat to heed ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... generation had traveled. There was marketing to do, and sewing continually on hand, and house-cleaning at stated intervals. In Helen Somers's old home the daily routine had been as inflexible as its ancestor's original Calvinistic creed—Monday, washing; Tuesday, ironing; Wednesday, cleaning the silver; Thursday, at home to visitors; Friday, sweeping; Saturday, baking; and Sunday, the hardest day of all. For, withal, the Puritan sense of observance, that had not been utterly swamped by ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... countrymen had organized and were carrying out against the Trinidadians proper. It happened that, on the occasion to which we wish particularly [88] to refer, the woman in question was at home, engaged in her usual occupation of ironing for her honest livelihood. Suddenly she heard a heavy blow in the street before her door, and almost simultaneously a loud scream, which, on looking hastily out, she perceived to be the cry of a boy of some ten or twelve years of age, who had been violently ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... paused to listen. No sound came from the interior of H. Cragg's apartment. Farther along she found a similar door on which was a card reading: "Miss Huckins, Dressmaker and Milliner." Listening again, she heard the sound of a flatiron thumping an ironing board. ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... dish again, and pushed it all round the room, trying to sop up more liquor, which wasn't there, and trod on Denison's canvas-slippered foot, and knocked over the little tin kerosene oil lamp which was standing on the floor, and when Hayes, with loud and blasphemous remarks grabbed at the ironing-blanket of the laundry-table to extinguish the flames, he pulled the table down on the top of Denison and himself and the goat and everything, for the blanket was nailed on at the four corners, and when he was down on his hands and knees, the goat ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... the washerwoman's cottage, it had a little garden in front of it. Through the window I saw the girls ironing by candle-light, I walked about till quite dark, then knocked at the door. The short one opened it, and seeing me shut the door saying, "Oh! you musn't ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... than to the girl before me; so I passed her, and stood at the entrance of a room hat in hand, for this side-door opened straight into the hall or house-place where the family sate when work was done. There was a brisk little woman of forty or so ironing some huge muslin cravats under the light of a long vine-shaded casement window. She looked at me distrustfully till I began to speak. 'My name is Paul Manning,' said I; but I saw she did not know the name. 'My mother's name was Moneypenny,' ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... rinsed well after the same manner in clean water. When the lace is clean, apply a very weak solution of gum arabic and stand the bottle in the sunshine to dry. Take off the lace very carefully when perfectly dry. Instead of ironing, lay it between the white leaves of a heavy book; or, if you are in a hurry, iron on flannel between a few thicknesses of fine muslin. Done up in this way, lace collars will wear longer, stay clean longer, and have a rich, new, lacy look that ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... went on to describe the maid's work-room, which was also of polished hardwood, and dust-proof, and had a balcony for brushing clothes, and wires upon which to hang them, and hot and cold water, and a big ironing-table and an electric stove. "But there can't be much work to do," laughed the girl, "for she never wears a gown more than two or three times. Just think of paying several thousand dollars for a costume, and giving it to your poor relations after you have worn it only twice! And ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... bosom or any other article has been scorched in ironing, lay it where bright sunshine will fall directly on it. It ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... provided an ell or two of coarse stuff for this mantle, and that the poisonous fellow Leus (Leo X), who wrote against Erasmus, or someone of his sort, has cut and lined the hood. But I will help them—please God—by ironing it ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... stealthy sharpness in her eyes. Her lips and hands and forehead were burning. She had been cold all day. A sound like the tolling of a bell beat in her ears. The children's voices were choked and distant. She wondered if Biddy were drunk, she seemed to dance about so at her ironing-table, and wondered if she must dismiss her, and who could supply her place. She tried to put my room in order, for she was expecting me that night by the last train, but gave up the undertaking in ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... get even with Duffy, when he was weak, and I went down there to his shanty and gave him his medicine, and read to him all day, and he cried 'cause he knew I ought to have mauled him, and that night I sat up with him while his Ma did the ironing, and Duffy was so glad that I went down every day and stayed there every night, and fired medicine down him, and let his Ma sleep, and Duffy has got mashed on me, and he says I will be an angel when I die. Last night makes five nights I have sat up with him, and he has ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... Babylon". are pure Ingres. To this day Degas might be very fairly described as un petit Ingres. Do we not find Ingres' penetrating and intense line in the thin straining limbs of Degas's ballet-girls, in the heavy shoulders of his laundresses bent over the ironing table, and in the coarse forms of his housewives who sponge themselves in tin baths? The vulgar, who see nothing of a work of art but its external side, will find it difficult to understand that the art of "La Source" and of Degas's cumbersome ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... hardships on account of poverty, finally settled in what appears to have been then a wilderness, "the woods of Watervliet, near Niskeyuna, about seven miles northwest of Albany." In the mean time Ann Lee had supported herself by washing and ironing in New York, and her husband had misconducted himself so grossly toward her that they finally separated, he going off with ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... near a window in her bedroom. The child fell to the floor and ruptured the cord about one inch from the umbilicus, but with speedy attention the happiest results were attained. Twitchell has an example in the case of a young woman of seventeen, who was suddenly delivered of a child while ironing some clothes. The cord in this case was also ruptured, but the child sustained no injury. Taylor quotes the description of a child who died from an injury to the head caused by dropping from the mother at an unexpected time, while she was in the erect position; he also speaks of a ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... to feel stifled in the house, where she had been busy ironing curtains, and tying on her old straw hat went out for a breath of air on the road. There was a light mist over the watercourses, veiling the pollards and thorn trees and the reddening thickets of Ansdore's bush—a flavour of ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... She would seal it up again and forward it on herself; it would reach her at home a day after her own arrival. Yes, thought Blanche, everything would dovetail excellently. She went into the kitchen where Mrs. Penticost was ironing and the pleasant smell of warm ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... of the houses and all domestic work, and was divided into Consistory, Dormitory and Kitchen Groups. There were also Washing, Ironing and Mending Groups, and perhaps some others. The beds, rooms, halls and lamps had to be attended to every day, water and towels provided, and the "Dormitory" and "Consistory Groups," situated as the ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... he said, in his pleasant Dublin brogue, "but 'twas I that thought it out. I wash them, of course, in the basin—that's easy enough; but you'd think I'd be put to it to iron them, wouldn't ye, now? Well, I've invinted a substischoot for ironing—it's me big books. Through all me vicissichoods, boys, I kept me Bible and me dictionary, and I lay the collars and cuffs in the undher one and get the leg of the bureau on top of them both—and you'd be surprised at ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... realities of life. Her third baby was born when the first was three years and two months old. That summer she boarded eleven factory hands, who roomed in her house, and she did all the cooking, washing and ironing, with no help except that of a thirteen-year-old girl, who went to school and did "chores" night and morning. The cooking for the family of sixteen was done on the hearth in front of the fire-place and in a big brick oven at the side. Daniel ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... manner towards John. That coming-along-with-him deportment was now lost in long musing looks at John and at herself and sometimes in slow heavy rubs of his hand across his forehead, as if he were ironing cut the creases which his deep pondering made there. He had had some coughing and whistling satellites secretly gravitating towards him about the premises, but they were now dismissed, and he eyed John as if he had meant to do him a public service, but had unfortunately been anticipated. Whether ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... everywhere labor." Edouard Frere, in his scenes from humble life, which the skilful lithographer places within the means of all, represents the incidents of domestic existence among the poor. "The Prayer at the Mother's Knee," "The Woman at her Ironing Table," "The Child shelling Peas," "The Walk to School amid Rain and Sleet," are all charming idyls of every-day life. With yet greater skill and deeper pathos does the peasant Millet tell the story of his neighbors. The washerwomen, as the sun sets upon their labors, and they go wearily homeward; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... one day, where the week before a little child had been carried to the churchyard, I found the mother hard at work, ironing. ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... these orphans, for, as I said before, the most deformed and helpless, and maimed and sick, are the peculiar objects of Dona Margarita's care; nevertheless, we saw various healthy, happy-looking girls, busied in various ways, washing and ironing, and sewing, whose very eyes gleamed when we mentioned her name, and who spoke of her with a respect and affection that it was pleasant to witness. Truly, this woman is entitled to happy dreams and soft slumbers! The remainder of her fortune she employs in the festivals ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... you ought to take off your fine clothes and help Winthrop more than you do," said his mother, going on with a shirt she was ironing. ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... threw open the door to the house of Higgins and marched in. She commanded him to fetch a hod of coal. She rattled her irons, touched her finger to the bottom of a hot one—tszt—and brought it down on the ironing board with a masterful jounce. And then she glared out of the window at the massive stern of the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... answered, with a laugh. "You see your Lamb has wheels on her, and she can roll right down the ironing board hill, just like Dick made an old roller skate roll down. ...
— The Story of a Lamb on Wheels • Laura Lee Hope
... "we knew how to make paper; of all the fascinating things in Bellamy's 'Equality,' there was nothing I liked so well as the idea of paper garments, to be burned when one got through with them. Think of never having any washing and ironing, and ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... ever held before their eyes what they may or may not do in the future calling, and how it is to be done. But take one of these orderly, efficient girls, put her in an American family as general servant or as cook, where two are kept, washing and ironing to do, and a variety of other work, and see how your English servant would stare at your requirements. She has been accustomed to her own line of work at home; if housemaid, she has been dressed for the day at noon; if cook, she has never done ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... The daughter was busy at some ironing in the outer room; she was a dull, lack-lustre creature, and though she comprehended the gifts that had been brought her, seemed hardly to have life enough to thank the donor. That wasn't quite like a fairy tale, Daisy thought. No doubt this poor woman must have things to ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... Messer Neri dismissed the rest of the company to their various avocations; the ladies silently retired to superintend the ironing and mending of the house linen, and Domenico was escorted by his host to see the newly arrived piece of statuary. It had been placed already in the banker's closet, where he could feast his eyes on its perfection while attending to his business or improving his mind by study. This closet, compared ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... After ironing the few little things Trudy shampooed her hair with scented soap and by the time its reddish loveliness was dry it was high noon and she repaired to her bedroom to mend and write letters. At one o'clock, in the process of dressing, ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... if nobody comes!" she had thought every time she woke in the night. But she needn't have worried. There was an argument in that advertisement, "Easier than washing, ironing, scrubbing or sewing," that appealed to many a feminine imagination, and when the fancy, thus awakened, played around the promising phrase "$21 a week—and up," hope presently turned to ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... hesitated. That was a strange thing to be acting; Mary Jane was not washing or ironing or churning or sweeping or any of the things the children usually acted and they were all puzzled. Then suddenly Betty remembered the back stairway and all the piles of boxes and excelsior on Mary Jane's back stairway and she called out the end of the song—"because ...
— Mary Jane's City Home • Clara Ingram Judson
... his general cleanliness; I am reminded of one or two exceptions, which I think, however, were errors of zeal. His manner of sprinkling clothes in preparing them for ironing was peculiar. He would fill his mouth with perfectly pure water from a glass beside him, and then, by one dexterous movement of his lips in a prolonged expiration, squirt the water in an almost invisible misty shower on the article before ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... down behind the mountain and the workers had departed, some traversing the fields and others disappearing by invisible paths in the near-by wood. The two sisters had taken the finished quilt from its wooden frame, and were carefully ironing out the wrinkles preparatory to adding it to the useless stack of its kind in the corner of ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... been down in the kitchen helping with some ironing, and now she came up with an armful of stiff skirts. For many women on state occasions wore a big hoop, and others swelled ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... these domestic gaps into which her mother always steps; and she comforts herself with the thought, 'I don't know how; I can't; I haven't the strength. I cant' sweep; it blisters my hands. If I should stand at the ironing-table an hour, I should be ill for a week. As to cooking, I don't know anything about it.' And so, when the cook, or the chambermaid, or nurse, or all together, vacate the premises, it is the mamma who is successively cook, and chambermaid, and nurse; and this is the reason ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... a field was to be brought into cultivation as soon as any labour could be had. Minna was looking infinitely better already, and Averil and Cora were full of designs for rival housewifery, Averil taking lessons meantime in ironing, dusting, and the arts of the kitchen, and trusting that in the two years' time, the skeletons would have given place—if not indeed to houses, to well-kept fields. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who presided over that department of household economy gave her always so warm a welcome that the child came to think of the faithful woman as one of her choicest friends. Working with her over a little ironing board, Barbara quickly became expert in all the finer and more delicate operation of her art, or as the ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... coal, owing to the quantity of dust found amongst it; but this if wetted makes the strongest fire for the back of the grate, where it should remain untouched till it is formed into a cake. Cinders lightly wetted give a great degree of heat, and are better than coal for furnaces, ironing stoves, and ovens. They should be carefully preserved and sifted in a covered tin bucket, which prevents the ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... heavy thunder-cloud darkened the sky above my head and pelted me with large drops of ominous warning. On one side of the road the iron gate and lodge of some gentleman's park suggested shelter; and the half-open door of the latter showing a tidy, pleasant-looking woman busy at an ironing table, I ventured to ask her to let me come in till the sponge overhead should have emptied itself. She very good-humoredly consented, and I sat down while the rain rang merrily on the gravel walk before the door, and smoked in its ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... are occupied in household work, washing, ironing, and sewing, and two hours of schooling. When the nature of the work will permit, instructive books are read aloud, or the deaconesses give pleasant talks on different subjects that will keep the thoughts of the workers busy, ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... of little air, and that little as hot and dry in the nostrils as the atmosphere of a laundry on ironing day. Beyond and above the trees a fiery blast blew from the north; but it was seldom a wandering puff stooped to flutter the edges of the tents in the little hollow among the trees. And into this empty basin poured a vertical sun, as if through ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... I were to swear and go on in that ridiculous way over every little thing I do for you, I wonder what you'd think of it! Brushing your hats, ironing your ties, putting your trousers into stretchers—and if I ask you to fasten a few buttons, you blaspheme. If you had the worries on your shoulders I have on mine! Cook's in one of her tempers to-day, just because I was ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... her away, she was that frightened little Margery would get Junior killed off in some horrible manner, like the time she got him to see how high he dast jump out of the apple tree from, or like the time she told him, one ironing day, that if he drank a whole bowlful of starch it would make him have whiskers like his pa in fifteen minutes. Things like that—not ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... there are thousands of Chinese, all the washing is performed by them. They work in the open air, just as the English and Scotch women used to do in their public washing-grounds, standing in the water rubbing and wringing their clothes. They have a curious practice in ironing, of spraying the linen with water through their mouths. They do the work very thoroughly, and at the same time cheaply. A Chinaman will live very comfortably on forty pounds a year, and, as he is an almost incessant worker, he can make sufficient money for his needs ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Nor had she her mistress testified the excuse of fearing unreasonable confinement. "I told her she might go when she had done her dishes after dinner," said Mrs Murchison, "and then she had only to come back at six and get tea—what's getting tea? I advised her to finish her ironing yesterday, so as to be free of it today; and she said she would be very glad to. Now, I wonder if she DID finish it!" and Mrs Murchison put down her pan of potatoes with a thump to look in the family clothes basket. "Not she! Five shirts ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... clay-modeling, coopery, dairying, domestic science, drawing, dress-making, electricity, embroidery, engineering, fancy work, farming, floriculture, gardening, glazing, harness-making, house decoration, half-tone engraving, housework, horticulture, ironing, knife work, knitting, lace-making, laundering, leather work, manual training, mattress-making, millinery, needlework, nursing, painting, paper-hanging, photography, plastering, plate-engraving, plumbing, pottery, poultry-farming, printing, pyrography, raffia, rug-weaving, sewing, shoemaking, ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... a boy," continued Wallace, "who came down early one winter morning, and after warming himself a moment by the sitting-room fire, he went out in the kitchen. It happened to be ironing day, and the girl was engaged in ironing at a great table by the kitchen fire. We will call ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... would not want him to stay a baby always, Mrs. Doctor, dear, would you?" said Susan. "Bless his innocent heart, he looks too sweet for anything in his little short dresses, with his dear feet sticking out. And think of the save in the ironing, Mrs. Doctor, dear." ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Tabitha's hurrying steps outside, and the fresh young voice thrilling over those familiar words brought the woman to her senses, and with a cry of desperation, Aunt Maria caught up the heavy ironing board in the corner and banged it with all her strength full upon the hissing coil on the floor, regardless of the fate of the cat. But the hysterical scream of the woman had broken the charm, and the frightened ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... she sighed as she took a turn at the ironing while she told her the news, and Mary washed the dinner things, "I am dreadfully nervous. I wish we had a cook and a parlourmaid, and I wish we were able to buy all the best things that can be got. Granny does so like to have nice food and nice everything. She has ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... bicycling through Norfolk, and one afternoon, to escape a coming thunderstorm, I knocked at the door of a lonely cottage on the outskirts of a common. The woman, a kindly bustling person, asked me in; and hoping I would excuse her, as she was busy ironing, returned to her work in another room. I thought myself alone, and was standing at the window watching the pouring rain. After a while, without knowing why, I turned. And then I saw a child seated on a high chair behind a table in a dark corner ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... charged the teacher fifteen dollars a month for board. That included his washing and ironing. I really earn my board by the work I do here Saturdays and Sundays, and in the mornings and evenings before and after school. But I will pay you twelve dollars ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... me all of a 'eap," said Mrs. Silk, rolling her handkerchief into a ball and placing it in her lap. "I was doing a bit of ironing when in walks Teddy with Amelia Kybird, and says they was married last Friday. I was that shaken I didn't know what I did or what I said. Then I came over as soon as I could, because I thought Mr. Wilks ought ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... came down with the dinner things about half-past nine, and said he was not wanted upstairs any more. Charles went to bed shortly afterwards—he sleeps in one of the two rooms off the kitchen. I went to my own bedroom before ten, after first telling Ann, the servant, who was doing some ironing in the kitchen, to turn off the gas at the meter if the gentlemen retired before she finished, but not to bother if they were still sitting up. It had been decided that the young gentleman should occupy the bedroom next to Mr. Glenthorpe, and Ann was a bit late with her ordinary work because it ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... a stranger, I shall be in nobody's way,' said Miss Tox, 'and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs Richards will do her mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever it is, without minding me: and you'll smoke your pipe, too, if you're so disposed, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... not sit up washing and ironing all night again. She ought to have help in her sympathy and labors for the poor fugitives, and, I should think there are many there who would willingly ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... I now ever permitted to see her in disarray, but always, as it seemed to me, fresh from my sister's clever hands, her hair laid smooth and shining, her simple gown starched crisp and sweetly smelling of the ironing board; and when I asked her why she was never but thus lovely, she answered, with a smile, that surely it pleased her son to find her always so: which, indeed, it did. I felt, hence, in some puzzled way, that this display was a design upon me, but to what end I could not tell. And there was ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... is able to keep good servants for them, for black servants are cheap down in this region, and by the way, dear, when you go up to Crabtree again, you must start an inquiry for a good colored cook among your lady friends. Tell them you want a good one, who understands washing and ironing and all about cooking. At present we boys do all the cooking down here and we send our laundry up to Crabtree, where there are only three Chinamen ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... night to disturb the inmates of the cottage, and when at last Dick did fall into slumber he did not awaken until the sun was shining in the window and a neighboring Irish woman, who did Mrs. Stanhope's washing and ironing, was knocking on the ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... but healthy body, and a pair of willing, if unskilled, hands. To her surprise, she discovered that the work for which she had so often lightly given orders was beyond her strength. Try as she would, she could not accomplish the task of washing and ironing table napkins and delicate embroidered linen pieces in the way she knew they should be done. Will power can accomplish a good deal, but it cannot always make up for ignorance, and the girl who had mastered difficult subjects in college, and astonished music masters ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... sons of an ironing-woman, were apprentices in a foundry of the near-by Ronda. The younger passed his days in a continuous capering, indulging in death-defying leaps, climbing trees, walking on his hands and performing acrobatic stunts ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... had, in a measure, justified their father's faith in them, since Rachel's illness, and Dorothy was released from much of her out-door work; but the silence of the kitchen, when she was there alone with her ironing and dish washing, was a heavier burden than ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... came back she was always up and better, and yet she seemed feverish and strange. Then sometimes of a morning, when Maria and the aunt had gone out marketing, and Carmela, shapeless and dishevelled in her white cotton jacket, was dusting or ironing, the beautiful idle sister would come out of her room, dressed for the street and carrying a prayer-book. Carmela would remonstrate with her. "You are not ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... in the whole country," said Toad airily. "All the gentry come to me—wouldn't go to any one else if they were paid, they know me so well. You see, I understand my work thoroughly, and attend to it all myself. Washing, ironing, clear-starching, making up gents' fine shirts for evening wear—everything's ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... many months. The boys had, in a measure, justified their father's faith in them, since Rachel's illness, and Dorothy was released from much of her out-door work; but the silence of the kitchen, when she was there alone with her ironing and dish-washing, was a heavier burden ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... for the sun went under a cloud soon after breakfast, and a cold drizzling rain began to fall. It gave me the rheumatism, and I was glad to curl up in a big market-basket on the shelf behind the stove, and enjoy the heat of the roaring fire. Nora was ironing, and singing as she worked. Not since I left the warm California garden had I been as peaceful and as comfortable. The heat made me so drowsy that not even the thump, bump of Nora's iron on the ironing-board, or the sound of her shrill singing could keep me awake. I dreamed and dozed, and dozed ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... towels. 2 floor cloths. 12 holders. Cheese cloth. Pudding cloth. Needles. Twine. Scissors. Skewers. Screw driver. Corkscrew. 1 doz. knives and forks. Hammer. Tacks and Nails. Ironing sheet and holder. Coal scuttle. Fire shovel. Coal sieve. Ash hod. Flat irons. Paper for cake tins. Wrapping paper. Small tub for laundry work. 6 tablespoons. ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... "It's like an ironing cloth," was my comment when I got between the sheets. I had often warmed my hands on the table where Nurse ironed my collars ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of Esparto grass—and again I recall That hour we spent by the weir of the paper-mill Watching together the curving thunderous fall Of frothing amber, bemused by the roar until My mind was as blank as the speckless sheets that wound On the hot steel ironing-rollers perpetually turning In the humming dark rooms of the mill: all sense and discerning By the stunning and dazzling ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... drunkard, gambler, and rake; a man—or rather a brute—who lives by his wits, abuses me like the pickpocket that he is, half starves me, and expects me to do all the work, cooking, cleaning, and everything else, even to washing and ironing of the few clothes he hasn't pawned; me! a lady brought up to have servants to wait upon ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... one was ironing in his shop in the basement of 263 1/2 Main street, he looked up and saw a crowd of childish faces pressed against the window. Most Chinamen make friends with children; this one hated them and tried to drive them away. But as soon as he returned to his work they were back ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... 'men'ment is carried," announced the Orchid Hunter. He untwisted his legs and clapped his hands. The paper walls slid apart, the little Nezans, giggling, bowing, ironing out their knees with open palms, came tripping and ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... O. K.," Hugh told him, smilingly. "We're pushing along pretty fairly, and ironing out some of the wrinkles as we go. Lots still to be done before we're ready to try conclusions with your team at Belleville; but with such a capable coach as Mr. Leonard, we believe ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... one and all, declaring them to be "fourteen," and therefore fit to be employed. It was perfectly evident that they were not ten in scores of cases, but the employer shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the certificate. The father, usually a tailor, would not listen at all, but went right on ironing. There was no birth registry to fall back on; that end of it was neglected. There seemed to be no way of proving the fact, yet the fact was there and must be proven. My own children were teething at the time, and it gave me an idea. I got Dr. Tracy to write out that table for me, showing at ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... engaged by a dancing-master for his numerous pupils, one of whom had extended an invitation to Miss Morleena, and Mrs. Kenwigs rightly deemed the honor of the family was involved in her daughter making the most splendid appearance possible. Now, between the Italian-ironing of frills, the flouncing of trousers, the trimming of frocks, the faintings from overwork and the comings-to again, incidental to the occasion, Mrs. Kenwigs had been so entirely occupied, that she had not observed, until within half an hour before, that the flaxen tails of Miss Morleena ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... accustomedness provided her with pleasure. She was fond of her scrubbing, she enjoyed the washing of her dishes, she definitely entertained herself with the splash and soapy foam of her washtubs and the hearty smack and swing of her ironing. In the days when she had served at the ribbon counter in a department store, she had not found life as agreeable as she had found it since the hours which were not spent at her own private sewing machine were given to hearty domestic duties providing cleanliness, ...
— In the Closed Room • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... did, not in so many words, but that was what I thought he meant. It was like this, sir," continued Mrs. Brunton, as they stood face to face on the wet gravel: "just about this time yesterday I was busy ironing, when my nephew, the lad you used to send with letters, who's here again for his summer holidays, comes to me an' says, 'You're wanted.' So I went, and there was a young gentleman looking fit to drop. He'd a bag with him, and he'd walked all the way from Upthorpe ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... pupils," she confessed. "And I couldn't bear to have you give up your lessons; and I got a place ironing shirts in that big Twenty-fourth street laundry. And I think I did very well to make up both General Pinkney and Clementina, don't you, Joe? And when a girl in the laundry set down a hot iron on my hand this afternoon I was ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... down in the shrubbery, and red and yellow showing up long since on the wooded hills. Not a soul in the place but is glad to have Fruen at home again; the flag, too, does its part. 'Tis like a Sunday; the maids have put clean aprons on, fresh from the ironing. ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... quite simple, and for that reason doubly effective. She sat down in Mrs. Simmons's kitchen, where the good woman was ironing, and said: ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... you were lost," said she to her children as they entered. "Robin, fill the boiler; and Marc, blow the fire under it. Your sister and I shall have to be at the wash-tub and ironing-board all night." ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... rambling house—it had but one Storey, with a Piazza running round, but a huge number of Rooms and Yards—in the suburbs of Kingston. There did I take up my abode. She had at least twenty Negro and Mulotter Women and Girls that worked for her at the Washing, and at Starching and Ironing, for the Mill was always going with her. 'Twas wash, wash, wash, and wring, wring, wring, and scrub, scrub, scrub, all day and all night too, when the harbour was full of ships. Not that she ever touched ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... expenditure of a certain amount of money, and money Alice had not—not even enough to pay a Chinaman for "doing up" one of her pretty muslins. Neither had she the facilities for doing them herself, had she been skilled in that sort of labor; for even to do your own washing and ironing pre-supposes the usual conveniences of a laundry, and these did not belong to the furniture of the outside kitchen. She had not worn her linen lawn since the visit to the mill. The dust which blew freely through every crack of the shrunken boards ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... then it was taken out of the washing-tub. It was starched, hung over the back of a chair in the sunshine, and was then laid on the ironing-blanket; then came the warm box-iron. "Dear lady!" said the collar. "Dear widow-lady! I feel quite hot. I am quite changed. I begin to unfold myself. You will burn a hole in me. Oh! I ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... times for a day or two, to refresh the weary frames of the men and cattle, toiling under the burthen of the camp equipage. The camp on those days used to present even a more busy scene than usual. The dobies were employed in washing and ironing their master's clothes, while the other servants and camp-followers were mending, making, and repairing garments, saddles, and harness, and ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... gave her consent; and our picture of Ellen and Patience at work at the ironing-board gives about as good likenesses of the two as their reflections in a mirror ...
— The Nursery, November 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... invariably attached to the service of those noble ladies who knew so well how to maintain their rank in that blessed time of serfdom. At this hour the workroom was empty. Some of the women were washing, others ironing, some cleaning and turning upside down everything in the private apartment the countess had just left. The young peasant girl, with her needle uplifted, rested her ruddy hand upon the edge of the ...
— The Little Russian Servant • Henri Greville
... "but who's afraid of Jack Frost? Danny Fox and Mr. Wicked Weasel, to say nothing of Hungry Hawk, are more to be feared." And that good lady rabbit began her ironing, for it was Tuesday, the day when all Rabbitville irons ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... the door and went over the way. Here she found a somewhat tidy woman at work ironing. Nobody else in the room. She made known her errand. The ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... moment, and then, as they did not turn back, and the Boy stood waiting, she took him into the drying-room and into the ironing-room, and then returned to the betubbed apartment first invaded. There was only one blot on the fairness of that model laundry—a heap of torn and dirty canvas in the ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... an extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about it, nevertheless, which—or the spot must be a wretched one indeed—cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree. Late as the Dutch clock' showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very wide awake, with a very tight night-cap on his head, and a night-gown very much ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... in a charitable light, Nan consented, and went cheerfully on with her work, wondering how she could have thought ironing an infliction, and been so ungrateful for the blessings of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of "the bits of washing," that came from a family in whose service she had been before she married BOB, and that family's connection. And this occupied her fully, what with soaking, and mangling and ironing, until it was time to carry BOB his dinner. In the pauses of her work she had been able to cook it, and it was quite ready to go with her when she was prepared to take it. It was a long walk (in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... You don't say so? Stuffing herself, I'm sure. And poor Mr. Brown lying dead in the next house—and there's my washing waiting for soap—and there's Mrs. Jones hasn't sent my ironing-board home; and mercy knows how I'm to get along ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... and went down stairs to the sitting-room. Aunt Stanshy was ironing. She generally did her ironing in the sitting-room, as the kitchen was very small, and, on a hot day, it was so hot there that one felt like sizzling at the ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... have just got a letter from an anonymous admirer of Stepping Heavenward, enclosing ten dollars to give away; I wish it was a thousand! The children are in tribulation about their kitten, who committed suicide by knocking the ironing-board on to herself. H. made a diagram of the position of the board that I might fully comprehend the situation, and then showed me how the corpse lay. They were not willing to part with the remains, and buried them ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... mansions in the neighbourhood, for luring maids from the smaller homes. Of course Mrs. Airedale and Mrs. Collie could afford to pay any wages at all. So now the best he could do was to have Mrs. Spaniel, the charwoman, come up from the village to do the washing and ironing, two days a week. The rest of the work he undertook himself. On a clear afternoon, when the neighbours were not looking, he would take his own shirts and things down to the pond—putting them neatly in the bottom of the red express-wagon, with the puppies sitting ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... dinner he lay down on the sofa, on the warm chintz cushions the children loved. Then he fell into a kind of doze. That afternoon Mrs. Morel was ironing. She listened to the small, restless noise the boy made in his throat as she worked. Again rose in her heart the old, almost weary feeling towards him. She had never expected him to live. And yet he had a great vitality in his young body. Perhaps it would have been a little relief ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... upon herself the strictest economy, although she never neglected her appearance. She had but one servant, who came every morning to clean up the house; she herself did all the other work, washing and ironing her own linen, cooking only twice a week, and eating cold meat on the other days, as much to save ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... warm, for Norah had been ironing. She was a thrifty soul, and when she had a big fire to heat her irons she liked to bake good things to eat in the oven at the same time. A basket full of beautifully ironed and starched clothes sat on the table, ready to be carried upstairs, and a bowl of crisp ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... any pleasure for myself? I'd be willing never to have a maid again; I don't mind doing the work. If we didn't have any children I'd be glad to do your father's cooking and the housework and the washing and ironing, too, for the rest of my life. I wouldn't care. I'm a poor cook and a poor housekeeper; I don't do anything well; but it would be good enough for just him and me. I wouldn't ever ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... afternoon he remained in his chair by the window. It was six o'clock, supper time, when he entered the kitchen. Keziah, looking up from the ironing board, saw him. He was white and worn and grim, but he held ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... flannels in the boot cupboard, he came and flung them onto the table where Aggie bent over her ironing-board. A ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... [At her ironing.] Yes, yes, that'll be it. If he wants two hundred, six hundred's sure to have come. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the Friday which followed January 5. There is no reason to suppose he did not fulfil his promise. On the Friday the woman was suffering from neuralgia. In the evening, however, she was in her usual health and spirits, and did her ironing up to eight o'clock. She went to bed between half-past nine and ten, and took with her a tumbler of water. In ten minutes the little girl and her brother went upstairs. They went to the mother, who was in bed with her child. The tumbler was nearly empty. The mother ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... the modest self-possession of a lady. The newcomer took a survey of the labors of a family of ten members, including four or five young children, and, looking, seemed at once to throw them into system, matured her plans, arranged her hours of washing, ironing, baking, cleaning, rose early, moved deftly, and in a single day the slatternly and littered kitchen assumed that neat, orderly appearance that so often strikes one in New England farmhouses. The work seemed to be all gone. Everything was nicely washed, brightened, put in place, and stayed ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... assigned to work as chiropodists to keep the feet of the prisoners in good condition, and the laundrymen, besides washing and ironing all the clothes, sheets and pillowcases, had to wash and disinfect all the blankets once a month. There were no walls surrounding the prison building, but the reservation being the headquarters of an army corps with barracks on all sides, escapes ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... and wash-house, or the wash-house consists of a couple of boards, with a post to keep them up, and a piece of netting overhead to keep the sun off. In larger houses, both bath-rooms and wash-houses are much the same as in England. Nearly all families do their washing, and often their ironing also, at home. Of the sanitary arrangements, it is almost impossible to speak too strongly; they are almost ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... that her husband's temper was causing him annoyance, took pains to help him to get rid of it. To relieve his sufferings I have known her search the house for a last month's morning paper and, ironing it smooth, lay it warm and neatly folded ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... corner stirred again; And the carved dog, curled in his arms, awoke, Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke. It piled in a maze round the ironing-place, And there on the snowy table wide Stood a Chinese lady of high degree, With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face . . . Yet she put away all form and pride, And laid her glimmering veil aside With a childlike smile for ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... stranger business was that of a ghostly servant-maid, who used to be heard in the kitchen at deepest midnight, grinding coffee, cooking, ironing,—performing, in short, all kinds of domestic labour—although no traces of anything accomplished could be detected the next morning. Some neglected duty of her servitude—some ill-starched ministerial band—disturbed the poor damsel in her grave, ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... married soldiers have a living-room, scullery, and one, two, or three bedrooms according to the size of their families. A laundry is provided adjacent to the married quarters, equipped with washing-troughs, wringer, drying-closet, and ironing-room; and the women are encouraged to use this in preference to doing ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... came about that the next day Johnnie Consadine did not go to the mill at all, but spent the morning washing and ironing her one light print dress. It was as coarse almost as flour-sacking, and the blue dots on it had paled till they made a suspicious speckle not unlike mildew; yet when she had combed her thick, fair hair, rolled it back from the white brow and braided it to a coronet ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... nicer than any one here," Mr. Halloway added, in thorough conviction. "You must be an adept in ironing." Phebe laughed softly in pure pleasure. It was so new to have such pretty things said to her. "Would it be very wrong to slip away together for a rest?" he continued, leading her a little farther along. "Let us sit down on the steps here and recruit. I have talked ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... in the North La Salle Street hall bedroom. The herculean captain, attired in a tattered bathrobe, underwear, socks and one slipper, patted the bottom of the iron with his finger and then carefully applied it to a trouser leg stretched on an ironing board in front ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... wench, of about thirty-five years of age, a Creole born, has been brought up in a gentleman's family, and capable of doing all sorts of work belonging thereto, as needle-work of all sorts and in the best manner; also washing, ironing, cooking, and every other thing that can be expected from such a slave: also two negro boys of about 12 or 13 years old, likely, healthy, and well-shaped, and understand some English. Likewise two healthy negro slaves of about 18 years of age, of agreeable tempers ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... very slow, however. Mrs. Bond went away when she could begin to go about the room and help herself. Cousin Jane was a good nurse, and she declared, "There wasn't work enough to keep her half busy." She did the mending and the ironing; Mr. Reed insisted they should have a washerwoman. Mrs. Reed sighed when she thought of the expense. It had been the pride of her life that she never had a fit of illness, and had never hired a day's work done except when Charles ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... it was certainly the most laborious day, as she always did her washing and ironing on Sunday morning, it being, as she said, the only leisure day she had; for on the other days she went about the country telling fortunes, and selling dream-books and wicked songs. Neither her husband's nor her children's clothes ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... a minute they were talking over old times together in the little sitting-room over the shop. CYRIL MUSH was delighted. "You can't charge an old friend anything for just ironing his hat," he said, with his peculiarly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... she replied, "for a poor woman, with four children to provide for, to get along, if she has to depend upon washing and ironing for a living. But when so many neglect to pay ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... poor widow. She struggled through the university by teaching in vacation; renting a poor little room in the town where the university was situated, and cooking her own food, doing her own washing and ironing, living in the plainest way, wearing cheap clothing, and eating the plainest food, while she was pursuing her studies. Her struggles with poverty and bitter circumstances taught her sympathy and kindness ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... o'clock now; even the briefest airing was out of the question. By the time the baby was dressed, coated, and hooded, and little Diego buttoned into gaiters and reefer, and Anne herself had changed her house gown for street wear, and pinned on her hat and veil, and Helma, summoned from her ironing, had bumped Virginia's coach down the back porch steps, and around the wet garden path to the front door,—by the time all this was accomplished, the short winter daylight would be almost gone, she knew, and the crowded hour that began with the children's baths, and that ended their little ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... the outfit, I continued on west to the new ranch, while the men began the fall branding at home. On arriving on the Double Mountain range, I found the outfit in the saddle, ironing up a big calf crop, while the improved herd was the joy and pride of my foreman. An altitude of about four thousand feet above sea-level had proved congenial to the thoroughbreds, who had acclimated nicely, the only loss being one ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... dander out of Polly. She wiped her hands extra clean, and came and twisted them this way and that, and crinkled them and smoothed them, and puckered the ends into folds, and laying them across the ironing-table, backed toward the wall with her head cocked sideways, and her eyes squinted together like Mr. Green's, the portrait-painter, when he ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... obeyed and consoled herself by giving the apprentice, who was ironing hose and towels by her side, a little push. Gervaise had a cap belonging to Mme Boche in her hand and was ironing the crown with a round ball, when a tall, bony woman came ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... ministering angel, you know," said Billie, "sent to do the washing and ironing and scullery work. Except for cooking meals, we expect to take life easy from ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... relief to the push. They ran against each other and the door-post in their eagerness to be at work. The furniture—what Mrs A. called her "few bits of things"—was carried out with elaborate care. The ironing table was the main item. It was placed top down in the cart, and the rest of the things went between the legs without bulging sufficiently to ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... Klu Kluxes and come to town, to Snow Hill. We rented a little house and my mother took in washing and ironing. I went to school and learned to read and write, then worked on farms, and fin'ly went to Columbia, in South Carolina, and worked in the turpentine country. I stayed there a ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the house is electric," explained Jerry, as if he were conducting a sight-seeing party through the Louvre. "All the baking, washing, ironing, bread-making, and cleaning is done by electricity. There's even an electric sewing-machine to sew with, and an electric breeze to keep you cool while you're doing it. If I hadn't seen the thing with my own eyes I'd never ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... man ever talked like that in this world. I don't believe I talked just so; but the fact is, in reporting one's conversation, one cannot help BLAIR-ing it up more or less, ironing out crumpled paragraphs, starching limp ones, and crimping and plaiting a little sometimes; it is as natural ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... which the old man called his artist workshop. It was in total darkness, but through the narrow open door in the middle of the left wall one could see what was going on in Barbara's little bow-windowed room. This was quite brightly lighted, for she was ironing and crimping ruffs for the neck, small ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... some weeks away from Cape Town, we sent our wash ashore; a resort of desperation. It came back clean enough, but for ironing—well; and as to starch, much in the predicament of Boatswain Chuck's frilled shirts after the gale, upon which, while flying in the breeze, he looked with a degree of professional philosophy that could express itself only by thrashing the cooper. Crumpled would ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... with [it] know at first sight, and which is totally different from Chelsea, or Derby, or Worcestershire, or Staffordshire. This I admit. One peculiarity Mr. S. Martin observed. The bottoms of the saucers have very slight undulations, looking, as he said, like a ribbon that requires ironing to be perfectly flat and smooth. This, when he showed me, I also noticed; and, I must add, I have seen the same in real Chinese china; but he told me he could distinguish better, and that it was not the same. Also, there is a uniformity in certain little flowers and roses ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... the States. I told her how, in case of sickness, one neighbor would slip over and cook the family breakfast for the sick woman, others would drop in later, wash the dishes, and put the house in order; and so by turns and shares, the washing, ironing, and mending would be done, and by the time the sick woman would be up and around, she would have no neglected work to discourage her. Also we talked of how flags were used for day signals and lights by night, ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... I could not quite separate myself from it, after all. Somehow the Doctor and I seemed to be there tete-a-tete. . . . I believe I did not have any fantasies about the ghostly kitchen-maid; but I trust Mary left the flat-irons within her reach, so that she may do all her ironing while we are away, and never disturb us more at midnight. I suppose she comes thither to iron her shroud, and perhaps, likewise, to smooth the Doctor's band. Probably, during her lifetime, she allowed him to go to some ordination ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... her funeral, but I have just been to put some flowers on her grave, and I took it off afore going that the damp mid not spoil the crape. You see, she was bad a long time, and I have to be careful, and do washing and ironing for a living. She hurt her side with wringing up the large sheets she had to wash for ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... while the men sat and smoked and spat on the veranda, discussing the drought for an hour, at the end of which time they went to help someone else with their stock. I made up the fire and we continued our ironing, which had been interrupted some hours before. It was hot unpleasant work on such a day. We were forced to keep the doors and windows closed on account of the wind and dust. We were hot and tired, and our feet ached so that we could scarcely stand ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... who had foregone sleep to patch jackets and sew on missing buttons. There were haversacks of coarse canvas for the Volunteers, finished and partly made, with ammunition-pouches and bandoliers. And Sister Tobias stood ironing at the deal table, partly screened by a line of drying linen, while Sister Mary-Joseph turned the mangle, and the little brisk novice, her round cheeks no longer rosy, folded with active hands. The Dop Doctor's keen quick ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... what a violent headache your servant suffered from the other day after ironing all those clothes you had in the wash? She owed that headache entirely to this work which she did for you. She had remained too long standing over the coals over which her flat-irons were being heated. You know already that when charcoal burns, it is from the carbon uniting with the oxygen ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... convenience to Aunt M'riar, who now and then was embarrassed with linen to dry, relieving her from the necessity of rendering the kitchen impassable with it in the morning till she came down and took it off of the lines ready for ironing, and removed the cords on which she ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... stool in the kitchen and whenever possible sit down to work. Vegetable paring, cake beating and even washing and ironing ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... Mrs. Creddle was ironing, and she looked up from the board almost in tears as her niece entered the kitchen. "Oh, Carrie," she began at once, "I thought you'd be coming. I am in such a way. I don't know whatever you'll say to me, but I've burnt a great place on the front width of your dress. ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... was alone, so that one might at first have been a little puzzled to know whom she addressed as "honey;" but as she continued to talk while unfolding another shirt, and laying it upon her ironing-board, it became evident that she was addressing the absent ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping—its dangers. Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &c., in a nursery. Their evil ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott |
