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More "Duster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... servant was late one morning, and I was greatly annoyed at his delay. He came up and stood before me with his usual salaam, and with a slight catch in his voice explained that his eight-year-old daughter had died last night. Then, with his duster, he set to ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... achievements. But to be a mix-muddle, to both mix and muddle, to morally fumble without tact, and display a totally imbecile wandering; I shall get mixed myself if I try to describe such a state. Mixed in this sense is American too. Take a duster, dexterously swing it, and remove a fleck of dust from a table or books, and you will understand the verb to "flirk," which is nearly the same as to ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... minutes one could do a great deal if one tried; so back again she hurried, and set to work dusting the furniture with an old cotton jacket of Peter's, because she could find no duster. The buttons got in the way sometimes, but that was a minor detail, and it did not do to be over-particular about trifles when one was in a hurry. The dusting was done, and she had started work on the dirty dishes, when the door of the inner room came open with a jerk, and ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... home about eleven o'clock, and when they reached the house were dismayed to find two furniture wagons, in front of the gate, already partly filled! Mrs. Peterkin was walking in and out of the open door, a large book in one hand, and a duster in the other, and she came to meet them in an agony of anxiety. What should they do? The furniture carts had appeared soon after the rest had left for Boston, and the men had insisted upon beginning ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... was in a decline, used to have snail-oil rubbed into her back," said Luce, the maid, who had been standing in the doorway with a duster. ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... unexpectedly; the kicking basket escaped from her arms, the lid burst open, and an extraordinarily large, healthy and indignant cat flew out, tail as big as a duster, and fled east on ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... room assigned to him, he at once began a minute examination of it. He found a window looking on the small courtyard, two doors, a bed, a chest, two chairs, a jar, a broom and duster; further, a shelf in the corner covered with oilcloth, on which stood a glass, a tin basin, a clothesbrush and a New Testament. He felt the stout bedclothes, tried the brush on his hat, held up glass and basin critically to the light, sat down experimentally ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... of the car. In the glare of the lamps Peter made out a man as tall as himself, in a linen duster that came to his heels, and with an automobile cap and goggles concealing most of his face. The stranger jerked the gate open, and a moment later Peter was confronting ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... Miss North; "but never mind; stay, if you want to." She tried to smile, but she looked at the duster which she had put down ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... in my study. It is very cold; Madame Menin, my housekeeper, has let the fire out. Hallo! she has left her duster, too, lying on the manuscript ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... the little room on the right, whose walls were decorated with various sporting prints chiefly illustrative of steeple-chases, with here and there a stunted fox-brush, tossing about as a duster. The ill-ventilated room reeked with the effluvia of stale smoke, and the faded green baize of a little round table in the centre was covered with filbert-shells and empty ale-glasses. The whole furniture of the room ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... eat, anyhow," he said aloud as he recovered his balance with the aid of the dashboard, disentangled his feet from the long skirts of his linen duster and sprang over the wheel with the alacrity of a man who took a keen interest ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... roses fair, A duster of pink and white, Roses that nod to the music low, The flowers ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... alongside—a fierce blast it has, and it will be needed if there is bad weather, for then sometimes as a heavy sea is coming the kitchen is hastily closed lest the waves should invade it, but the lamp may still be heard roaring away inside all the same. An iron enamelled plate and a duster complete the furniture of our little scullery, all the rest of the things we started with having been improved out of existence, for simplicity is the heart of invention as brevity ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... Roger and splendidly proportioned, huge of shoulder, broad of hip, but without an ounce of fat upon her. Her face was gaunt and brown: thin lips, long thin nose, gray eyes set deep, iron gray hair straggling over her forehead from under a dusty pink sunbonnet. She wore a linen duster buttoned close to ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... provide bread and jam for you, indeed! Well, we'll very soon see! Take that!" and he struck the flies such a heavy blow with a duster that no fewer than seven lay dead upon the table, while the others flew up to the ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... drawn up, and a converted gypsy was alternately pretending to repair an imaginary break and relieving his nerve-strain by pacing the road. Balthazar's fantastic garments had given way to a plain sack suit and motor duster, but the profit of his employment by Raymond Owen was worth ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... questions, talking to the teachers and children, enlivening all by his encouragement and cheerfulness. He was a martinet on one question, and that was cleanliness, and its kindred virtue, orderliness. He was never above working with mop, broom and duster indoors, and shovel and rake in the garden; and this trait added much to the appearance of things as well as to the comfort of all concerned in the use of ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... miss, this way,' she whispered to Aster. 'We shall keep in shelter of that duster of cedars yonder. The robber chief comes this way.' Aster followed her guide without question; but she turned her head every few minutes to look for Roland. He was now far in the rear, but he was following the lead of ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... town. If I were you I'd choose a tan; a veiling gown, like this first one we showed you, only tan. Then you could put the difference in price into a coat;—we have some smart ones in tan,—with a light pongee duster to slip over it all, if she's driving ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... house-dust should be avoided. The dust should be removed—not by the old-fashioned feather duster which scatters the dust into the air—but by a damp or oiled cloth. Dust-catching furniture and hangings of plush, lace, etc., are not hygienic. A carpet-sweeper is more hygienic than a broom, and a vacuum cleaner ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... one can see you was born a gentleman; and I am a deal prouder to have you and your washing than I should him as pays you your wages. Pale eyes—pale hair—pale eyebrows—I wouldn't trust him to mangle a duster." ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... his allegation at the point of the—knuckle! That hulking, ugly youth is Braddy, the bully, the terror of the Guinea-pigs, and the laughing-stock of his own class-mates. The boy who is fastening a chalk duster on to the collar of Braddy's coat is Tom Senior, the Doctor's eldest son, who, one would have imagined, might have learned better manners. Last, not least (for we need not re-introduce Messrs. Ricketts ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... or other, intrusted the keys of the wine-cellar to one of the house-maids; and that that industrious person had seized the opportunity to tilt up all the port-wine she could lay her hands on in order to polish the bottles with a duster. ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... to the railroad depot to meet Lincoln at the train. It was in the afternoon, towards night. The day had been quite warm, and the road was dry and dusty. He found Lincoln just emerging from the depot. He had on a thin suit of summer clothes, his coat being a linen duster, much soiled. His whole appearance was decidedly shabby. He carried in his hand an old-fashioned carpet-sack, which added to the oddity of his appearance. Major Wilcox says if it had been anybody else he would have been rather ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... of Foster's habitual attire under all circumstances in warm weather was a long linen duster, and it is a defect of ursine perception to confound a man with his clothes. When the napping skirt of Foster's duster seemed to be within reach, the over-eager bear made a grab for it, and released his grasp of the tree. The ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... all things to match in with the image: Thus, for example, the tall palms with their feather-duster tops, bending seaward, turned into broad elms standing in regular double rank, like Yankee militiamen on a muster day. And night times, when through his windows there came floating in the soft vowelsome voices of native fishermen paddling their canoes ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... sound that Alice, though she was dusting in the front-room, did not hear it. She heard nothing till the bell discreetly tinkled. Justifiably assuming that the tinkler was the butcher's boy, she went to the door with her apron on, and even with the duster in her hand. A handsome, smooth man stood on the step, and the electric carriage made a background for him. He was a dark man, with curly black hair, and a moustache to match, and black eyes. His silk hat, of an incredible ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... hundred and fifty disciplined soldiers. I still nominally command that company, but they have developed into a heterogeneous mob of specialists. If I detail one of my subalterns to do a job of work, he reminds me that he is a bomb-expert, or a professor of sandbagging, or director of the knuckle-duster section, or Lord High Thrower of Stink-pots, and as such has no time to play about with such a common thing as a platoon. As for the men, they simply laugh in the sergeant-major's face. They are 'experts,' if you please, and are struck off all fatigues and company duty! It was ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... up her duster. "Well, lad, thee says so. Daily savin' of the cents got it. Maybe thee thought me a hard woman?"—with an anxious look. "I kept all the accounts of it in that blue book I burned to-night. Nobody must know what it cost. No. Thee'd best go to sleep, lad. I've an hour's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... green grass courtyard. Seated before a rude table, sipping aguardiente, was his countryman Winslow and two traders of the pueblo. They were evidently of the number already indicated who had adopted the American fashions. Senor Ruiz wore a linen "duster" in place of his embroidered jacket, and Senor Martinez had an American beard, or "goatee," in imitation of Mr. Banks. The air was yellow with the fumes of tobacco, through which the shrewd ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... of Salvation. The Codpiece of the Law. The Slipshoe of the Decretals. The Pomegranate of Vice. The Clew-bottom of Theology. The Duster or Foxtail-flap of Preachers, composed by Turlupin. The Churning Ballock of the Valiant. The Henbane of the Bishops. Marmotretus de baboonis et apis, cum Commento Dorbellis. Decretum Universitatis Parisiensis super gorgiasitate muliercularum ad placitum. The Apparition of Sancte ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... tied a knot to mark the length. Then she went back and crossed the room, and again make a knot to mark the width. Then she hastily gathered up the string, pulled the brad awl from the woodwork, and put them in her pocket. While she had been carrying this out she retained a duster in one hand, and dusted the wood work as she moved along, trusting that if Miss Penfold should look in, the string, which was of a dark color, would be unnoticed by her. However she gave a sigh of relief when the operation was complete, ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... the drawing-room, where a servant in striped print was languidly caressing the glass of a bookcase with a duster. "You can leave this a bit," Edwin said curtly to the girl, who obsequiously acquiesced and fled, forgetting ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... impatient after domestic experiences which would have gone far towards cowing the generation of women before her. Her mother had bowed beneath such experiences without so much as an inquiry or expostulation. As Marie hurried about with brush and duster, with black-lead and fire-fuel, as she stood over the purring stove, and watched toast and eggs and coffee come to their various perfections, each over its ring of flame, she ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... come in," he said; and jumping up he got out a feather duster and whisked off a chair for Rosalind, remarking that dust didn't ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... heard Clump's report, her distress was very great. As she groaned, and wiped her wet, shrivelled eyes with a duster, she said— ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... point as to put a stop to all Winter soldiering, so that a fellow could go home as soon as cold weather began, sit around a comfortable stove in a country store; and tell camp stories until the Spring was far enough advanced to let him go back to the front wearing a straw hat and a linen duster. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... his visitor returned from their trip in the mountains, that evening, tired, dusty, and exultant. The professor's linen duster had acquired several of those triangular rents which have the merit of being beyond masculine repair, and may therefore be conscientiously endured. He sat on the camp-chair at Palmerston's tent door, his finger-tips together and his head thrown back in ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... advantage that the work should be done thus cleanly, because if a spot of wax is dropped on the surface of the glass that is to be painted on, the spot must be carefully scraped off and every vestige of it removed with a wet duster dipped in a little grit of some kind—pigment does well—otherwise the glass is greasy and the painting ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... consciousness that there was something askew in their way of living. She longed to put it right, but did not know how. Now and then she dusted the furniture—but it was so seldom she could find the duster because it was never in the same place twice. And when the clothes-brush was to be found she tried to brush her father's best suit on Saturdays, and once sewed on a missing button with coarse white thread. When Mr. Meredith went to church next day every female eye saw that button and ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... in my presence. "To think that a thinking being has to be beholden to a thing like that for his weekly income! Somebody ought to tap him with a feather-duster and ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... rushing in and carrying it away on their heads. Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her sister was within hearing said, "Stop the children, for God's sake! Bessy; don't let 'em come up the door-steps; Sally's bringing the old mat and the duster, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... it the ashes from the stove, and, leaving a cloud of dust to settle everywhere upon tables and chairs, ran down with his pail and back again with kindling and firewood and had a fire going in an extraordinarily short time. He then caught up an ancient antimacassar, used it as a duster upon chairs and tables, flung it back again in its place over the rickety sofa and rushed for the station to find that the train had already pulled in, had come to a standstill and was disgorging ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... chum and me took hold of the legs and Pa took hold of the summer kitchen, and we rung the water out. Pa want so sociable after that, and he went back in the woods with his knife; with nothing on but a linen duster and a neck-tie, while his pants were drying on a tree, to cut a switch, and we hollered to him that a party of picnicers from Lake Side were coming ashore right where his pants were, to pic-nic, and Pa he run into ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... rooms in the house—especially upon the topmost floor—into which even the servants seldom went. There were vacant rooms which never knew broom nor duster. The dwelling, indeed, was altogether too large for the needs of Mr. Starkweather and his ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... come, kids, come! "With a bim! bam! bum! Here's little Billy bangin' on his big bass drum! He's a-marchin' round the room, With his feather-duster plume A-noddin' an' a-bobbin' ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... dropping her aitches and stumbling over them on her first entrance in order merely to win a laugh and so lift her little role from the common rut of "lines" to the dignity of "a bit." For another, she seldom if ever brandished that age-honoured wand of her office, a bedraggled feather-duster. Nor was she by any means in love with ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... to it and thought about it very earnestly. If by any chance he could get two suits of clothes, he would then feel that he had a head worth having. "What would you say," he said, presently, "if when I wanted to smoke I was to put on a long duster—I guess Mr. Himes had dusters—and a nightcap and rubbers? I'd agree to hang the duster and the cap in the shed here and never smoke without putting 'em on." There was a deep purpose in this proposition, for, enveloped in the long duster, he might sit with Thomas ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... on Furniture.—A mixture composed of equal parts of turpentine and linseed oil will remove the white marks on furniture caused by water. Rub it on with a soft rag and wipe off with a perfectly clean duster. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... it!" declared Molly; "if I only had a decent broom instead of this old stub! Now, I'll sweep, Mopsy, and you find something that'll do for a duster, and we'll straighten up the place ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... in the need for "putting the gentlemen's rooms straight," against the arrival of the two families to-morrow. Duster in hand, and by the light of a single candle that barely survived the draught from the open window, she moved to and fro about the Duke's room, a wan and listless figure, casting queerest shadows on the ceiling. There were other candles ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... sorts are next to worthless, but a few of the brands especially prepared for this work (and sold usually at $3 per hundred pounds, which will last two ordinary home gardens a whole season) are very convenient to use, and effective. Apply with a duster, like that described ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... her head in through the portieres again, and follows it with her arm and hand, in which is a feather duster, which she waves wildly in an endeavor to ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... participation went—than if she had been only a faithful old housekeeper; she could only grieve and lament that such discord had come between the two whom she loved, and that in herself was no power even to solace their distresses. Marian found her standing in the passage, with a duster in one hand and a hearth-brush in ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... heard her go into the hall and say, "Please send me down a clean duster, Laura. Joe, you get it." I would run gayly up the steps, and then would come Billy's turn. "Billy, I have forgotten my keys. Go ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... obituary set up by his own hand, conveying the impression that at last the end had come to a misspent life. Then there was J. N. Free—the "Immortal J. N.," as he called himself, a gaunt, cadaverous figure in broad hat and linen duster, with hair flowing over his shoulders, who stalked into the offices at unseemly hours to "raise the veil" of ignorance and error, and "relieve the pressure" of psychic congestion in a town by turning upon it the ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... presently passed into an inner room and fetched therefrom a tin box, upon which were painted in dingy white the letters "J. E. M. A.," and underneath "Stagholme Estate." This the embryo lawyer carefully wiped with a duster, and set it up on some of its fellows immediately behind ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... common enough in New York—"Perhaps I did not have that amount," for "perhaps I had not," etc. The work revels in that buff binding which has given to the Leisure Hour Series the popular sobriquet of the "Linen Duster Series," a livery now well known as the certain indication of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... fetched a duster and rubbed the little window bright and clear. It was a small office she had often performed for ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... questioning the right of the senior of the two officers who had alighted at Sancho's to the title of colonel. Soldier stood out all over him, even though his garb was concealed by a nondescript duster. His face, lined, thin-lipped and resolute, was tanned by desert suns and winds. His hair, once brown, was almost white. His beard, once flowing and silky, was cropped to a gray stubble. His steely blue eyes snapped under their heavy thatch, his head was ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... a severe and uncharitable look, but a row of them suggests the antique and pleasing pomp and ceremony of their early days, before the sideboard cupboards were only used to keep the boxes of strings and nails and the duster; and the best decanters were put on a high shelf, while the plain ones were used for vinegar in the kitchen closet. There is far less social visiting from house to house than there used to be. People in the smaller towns have more acquaintances who live at a distance ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... at me, "I'm comparatively safe for the moment, and so is the matting. But before we do anything more, get a duster—a person like you is sure to have a duster in a drawer. Just so, there it is. Now wipe up the marks of my muddy feet in the room we first came into as well as this, and then see to the paint of the window. I have probably smirched it. Then roll up the Times tight, ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... difficulty in finding my aunt. She was the last of the passengers to alight, and it was not until I got her into the carriage that she seemed really to recognize me. She had come all the way in a day coach; her linen duster had become black with soot, and her black bonnet gray with dust, during the journey. When we arrived at my boardinghouse the landlady put her to bed at once and I did not see her again ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... dingy appearance inseparable from age in a letter is accentuated by rubbing it lightly with a dirty duster. The effect is usually obvious under a strong glass, the passage of the dirty cloth revealing ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... morning's work with a feather duster. Occasionally he straightened a row of books. The bell tinkled, and Phyllis, in her brown coat and hat, stood, hesitant, at the ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... while tidying one of the rooms in a villa formerly occupied by the Wagner family in summer, perceived an enormous halo shining persistently over a certain bedstead standing against the wall, the said halo absolutely refusing to remove itself when attacked with a feather- duster. The housemaid thought at first that it was simply an effect of the sunlight, but observed subsequently that the halo was just as large, fine yellow, opaque, and circular on dark days as on bright ones; ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... you tremble, child!" she cried. "Do you like old Colonial blue ware as well as that? If you do, you shall have this piece. Charity, bring a duster, or, better, a damp cloth. You shall have it, ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... brute he was, ugh!" she said, re-tying the ribbons of her bonnet under her square chin, and smoothing out her linen duster. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... of the automobile that spoke, and in vain did his fair companion clutch at the tails of the linen duster that he wore; he was in the full tide of eloquence ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... every morning, patting and stroking it till she had got it perfectly smooth and flat. Then she went about the room downstairs, put each chair back in its place, and if she found anything lying about she put it in the cupboard. After that she fetched a duster, climbed on a chair, and rubbed the table till it shone again. When the grandfather came in later he would look round well pleased and say to himself, "We look like Sunday every day now; Heidi did ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... I suggest that you be in a hurry about it!" said Archie, seeing that the woman had risen and was now moving rapidly toward them. The Governor stepped jauntily from the running board, with his hands thrust into the pockets of his duster. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he noted Archie's trepidation. He glanced toward the woman indifferently, removed his cap and addressed the little girl, who stood beside the pony with her hand on the bridle. A second car drew up just behind the Governor's machine. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... like this 79-cent pastel art stuff you see in the Sixth Avenue department stores. The water looks like it had been laid on by Bohemian glass blowers who didn't care how many colors they used. The little islands near by, with clumps of feather-duster palms stickin' up from 'em, was a bit stagey and artificial. The far-off shores was too vivid a green to be true, and the high white clouds was the impossible kind that Maxfield Parrish puts on magazine covers. And, with that dazzlin' ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... rose-coloured lot that Mr. Lyman B. Rattray offered her, sitting in her father's study, with his hair very much brushed up on one side and very much flattened down on the other, a white tie and light-yellow duster adorning his ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... second glance to see that he was her brother, not only on account of the family resemblance between them, but also because he allowed her to get into the buggy without offering the slightest assistance, which, indeed, was not needed, and graciously permitted her to place the duster that covered his knees over her own lap as well. The restive team trotted rapidly down the road for a few rods, until they came to a wide place in the highway, and then whirled around, seemingly within an ace of upsetting the buggy; but the young man evidently knew his business, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... the private office of the editor of "The Financial Pilot" had fallen into a state of sordid dilapidation. If the janitor had received orders never to use a broom or a duster there, he obeyed them strictly. Disorder and dirt reigned supreme. Papers and manuscripts lay in all directions; and on the broad sofas the mud from the boots of all those who had lounged upon them had been drying for months. On the mantel-piece, ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... aren't any of us annexationists," said a middle-aged woman from Toronto in a duster, and ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... irritation, and she looked sullenly at the enormous wardrobe and dressing-table with their speckled mirrors. These had delighted her at first, but in her heart she preferred the battered, makeshift furniture of Cardigan Street. A few licks with the duster and her work was done; but here the least speck of dust showed on the polished surface. Jonah, too, had got into a nasty habit of writing insulting words on the ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... for one expensive week, China (guaranteed antique)— Derby, Sevres and Lustre— Charmed her, till our Abigail Washed them in a kitchen pail, Dried them with a duster! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... never wash the chimneys of a lamp, as it causes them to crack when they become hot. Small sticks, covered with wash-leather pads, are the best things to use for cleaning the glasses inside, and a clean duster for polishing the outside. The globe of a moderator lamp should be occasionally washed in warm soap-and-water, then well rinsed in cold water, and either wiped dry or left to drain. Where candle-lamps are used, take out the springs ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... felt hat; A Coptic priest from Ararat; An English girl with cheeks of rose; A Nihilist with Socratic nose; Paddy from Cork with baggage light And pockets stuffed with dynamite; A haughty Southern Readjuster, Wrapped in his pride and linen duster; Two noisy New York stockbrokers, And twenty British globe-trotters. To my disgust and vast surprise, They turned on me lack-lustre eyes, And each with dropped and wagging jaw Burst out into a wild guffaw: They laughed with huge mouths opened wide; ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... you did not, for a duster would have swept away these shreds of varnish. Who has the key of ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... finger-rings set with sham diamonds—altogether the sort of outfit that its owner would probably have described as "rather nobby." Feeling that just now it needed a few repairs, he opened the bag, pulled out a duster and flicked away for half-a-minute at his brown boots. Next with a handkerchief he mopped his face and wiped round the inner edge first of his straw hat, and then of his collar and cuffs. After this he stood up, shook his trousers till ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Sharp, who had caused a magnificent cradle and baby-wardrobe to be got ready at his own expense, was most unmercifully scored. The infant was caricatured with a long gray beard and spectacles, with Sharp in a duster carefully rocking him to sleep, while Joanna the Prophetess treated the engraver to some "cuts" in her own style, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... Aunt Selina said, from the head of the stairs, "I sent those towels over from Ireland. Tell her to wash and bleach the one Mrs. What's-her-name Brown used as a duster." ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... asked, and then she described to me this great bird nearly as big as a house, that you saw out miles away from any land, sleeping above the vast and desolate ocean. She told me that the Ancient Mariner was all about one; and quoted with great verve (she had a duster ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... The end of it was that, after pawning my revolver and my top-boots, the only valuable possessions I had left, to pay for my lodging, I was thrown on the street, and told to come back when I had more money. That night I wandered about New York with a gripsack that had only a linen duster and a pair of socks in it, turning over in my mind what to do next. Toward midnight I passed a house in Clinton Place that was lighted up festively. Laughter and the hum of many voices came from within. I listened. They spoke French. A society ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... we cast out evil? Satan cannot cast out Satan. No one can clean a room with a filthy duster. The surgeon cannot cut out the disease if his instruments are defiled. While he removed one ill-growth he would sow the seed of another. It must be health which fights disease. It will demand a good temper to overcome the ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... Mickey drew the duster he handled between vacuum days across a table and steadily watched first Douglas, then Leslie, both of whom ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... strike in the house. Pauline, retracing her steps, went slowly past her sisters and Miss Tredgold. Miss Tredgold slightly raised her voice as the culprit appeared. She read aloud with more determination than ever. Penelope flung down the duster she was hemming ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... hair dressing number I inhale about $4 worth of breakfast and then lounge about my little nest. I call it my little nest because it is finished in birdseye maple. I always have eggs for breakfast, and Estelle puts on the finishing touches with a feather duster and I boss the job, smoking a cigarette. I always was strong for having things harmonize. I suppose it is my artistic temperament. I always drink cordials the same color as my hat. After that everything is fixed to my entire satisfaction, and I won't ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... she's ben here many days. I've bought a piece of unbleached muslin and a piece o' brown gingham for her to make up; that'll keep her busy. Of course she won't pick up anything after herself; she probably never see a duster, and she'll be as hard to train into our ways as if she ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... would Sara Teasdale be beside Edwin Markham? Is there not danger that the poet, once launched on a career as an agitator, will no longer have time to dream dreams? If he bases his claims of worth on his ability as a "carpet-duster," [Footnote: See Aurora Leigh.] as Mrs. Browning calls the agitator, he is merely unsettling society,—for what end? He himself will soon have forgotten—will have become as salt that has lost its savor. Nothing ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... invited me into his room. He is exceedingly kind and generous, though, I am sorry to say it, a friend of oppression. He gave me a splendid apple, the first which I had seen for the season. He dusted my coat with his feather-duster, and he even dusted my boots. He asked me how far I had been walking. I told him all which I had said and done, thinking that it would profitably remind him of the great subject. He roared with laughter. "Three cheers for Gustavus;" "isn't that rich;"—waving, all the ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... having a pair of handcuffs which are too small or too large; and when the latter is the case, and the prisoner gets the "bracelets" in his hands instead of on his wrists, he is then in possession of a knuckle-duster from which the bravest would not ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... fat country man with a linen duster and whiskers and baggy umbrella. Patsy Moriarty (Patrici really. Did you ever hear such a name? Mrs. Lippett couldn't have done better) who is tall and thin was Julia's wife in a absurd green bonnet over one ear. Waves of laughter followed them the whole length of the course. Julia played ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... breakfasted, Maria Clara consumed her impatience in working at a silk purse while her aunt was trying to clean up the traces of the former night's revelry by swinging a feather duster about. Capitan Tiago was busy looking over some papers. Every noise in the street, every carriage that passed, caused the maiden to tremble and quickened the beatings of her heart. Now she wished that she were back in the quiet convent ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... the same race is fast dying out; indeed, the time is not far distant when all the varieties of young woman will have vanished from New England, as the dodo has perished in the Mauritius. The young lady is all that we shall have left, and the mop and duster of the last Almira or Loizy will be stared at by generations of Bridgets and Noras as that famous head and foot of the lost bird are stared at in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... call you over in Australia," ses Ginger; "my name is Dick Duster, likewise known as the Sydney Puncher. I've killed three men in the ring and 'ave never 'ad ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... round her forehead, was busily polishing the stair-rods, while Cousin Matilda was in the kitchen washing the drawing-room ornaments in a lather, her sleeves rolled back on her thin arms, and her head tied up oddly and coquettishly in a duster. ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... can see him now if you want to. Why did you go and ride that little devil Knuckle-Duster when I told ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... Sweeping the matting in the center of the corridor before breakfast, or sweeping the bare 'sides' of this matting after breakfast, were tasks that developed into sinecures. The girl who went with long-handled feather duster to dust the statuary enjoyed a distinction equal to Don Quixote's in tilting at windmills. Filling the student-lamps, serving in a department where clerical work was to be done, or, as in science, where materials and specimens had to be prepared, were on the list of possibilities. ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... now took her turn at looking disapproval. She exclaimed: "Why, the dress is as good as new; much too good to travel in. You ought to have worn a linen duster over ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... contributed to removing any serious feelings with his chatter and his jokes. Being familiar with these tombs, he had lost respect for them, as sacristans lose it for the saints they brush the dust off of with a feather-duster. Moreover, he judged everything by an esthetic criterion, completely devoid of respect; for him there were only sepulchres with artistic character, or without it; of a good or a poor period; and the latter sort he struck contemptuously ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... Duster," muttered the scout. "Did you ever see a skunk-trap? Oughts is for mush-rats, and number ones is mostly used for 'coons and 'possums, and I guess they'd do for a skunk. But you and we'll call this here trap a number two, Duster, for the skunk I'm after is a big one. All ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... mistake or negligence or forgetfulness in an office is remedied and forgotten. Mrs. Omicron—my dear Mr. Omicron—never hears of it. Not so with Mrs. Omicron's office, as your aroused imagination will tell you. Mrs. Omicron's parlourmaid's duster fails to make contact with one small portion of the hall-table. Mr. Omicron walks in, and his godlike glance drops instantly on the dusty place, and Mr. Omicron ejaculates sardonically: "H'm! Four women in the house, and they can't even keep ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... b'iled egg done up in another napkin, a cup an' saucer, a little chiney coffee-pot, a little pitcher of cream, some loaf sugar in a silver dish, a little pancake of butter, a silver knife, two little spoons like what the childern play with, a silver pepper duster an' salt dish, an' an orange. Oh, yes, the' was another contraption—a sort of a chiney wineglass. The feller set down the tray an' says, 'Anythin' else ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... her employment of wiping the furniture of the room with a duster for some minutes, during which I did not speak, but watched the floating ice on the river. "Well," said Mary, "do you always talk as you do now? if so, you'll be a very nice companion. Mr Turnbull who came ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... from the top to the bottom of the house, even after the first day she came, the same sort of sunbeam she was at home. She took in hand Miss Danforth's broom and duster, and did Cindy's part of setting cups and saucers; but that was a small matter. The helpful hand which made itself so busy and the voice which ran music all up and down the house, were never forgotten, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... fell to work, scaling off the palace on his left, blocking off the cemetery ahead, and trying to draw a palm without emphasizing the thought of a feather duster. His engineering training made him critical of his lines and outlines, but when it came to the introduction of color he had the sensation of a shipwrecked mariner ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... particularly satisfactory. These men were "angels of God" who required this infamy for their protection! If it takes all the honor out of a man when he gets to be an angel, they may use my wings for a feather-duster. ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... up too high. Be careful not to rub the dust into instead of off the edges. If mildew or damp is discovered, carefully wipe it away, and let the book stand open for some days in a very dry spot—but not in front of a fire. Be careful that no grit is on the duster, or it will surely mark your books. Do not wedge books in too tightly. Common-sense must dictate what is right, but every volume should fit ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... "The Enchanted Fountain," "Her Revenge," "Love and Witchcraft" are their names. The music is full of wit, a quality Loomis possesses in unusual degree. The music mimics everything from the busy feather-duster of the maid to her eavesdropping. Pouring wine, clinking glasses, moving a chair, tearing up a letter, and a rollicking wine-song in pantomime are all hinted with the drollest ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... mile in each three minutes, we came to the only hill on the entire route which was considerable, both in extent and in degree of gradient. Doctor Castleton allowed the gait of his horses to slacken into a slow walk; and—ever nervous, ever active—he reached into the side pocket of his linen duster, and drew forth a small book, apparently fresh from ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... went about from office to office leaving his obituary set up by his own hand, conveying the impression that at last the end had come to a misspent life. Then there was J. N. Free—the "Immortal J. N.," as he called himself, a gaunt, cadaverous figure in broad hat and linen duster, with hair flowing over his shoulders, who stalked into the offices at unseemly hours to "raise the veil" of ignorance and error, and "relieve the pressure" of psychic congestion in a town by turning upon it the batteries ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... signs of it. When discovered, carefully wipe it away, and then let the book remain a few days standing open, in the driest and airiest spot you can select. Great care should be taken not to let grit, such as blows in at the open window from many a dusty road, be upon your duster, or you will probably find fine scratches, like an outline map of Europe, all over your smooth calf, by which your heart and eye, as well as your book, ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... the Man pausing to light his pipe, Emmy Lou, in the sudden respite thus afforded slid in a trembling heap beneath the desk, and on hands and knees went crawling across the floor. And as Uncle Michael came in, a moment after, broom, pan, and feather-duster in hand, the last fluttering edge of a little pink dress was disappearing into the depths of the big, empty coal-box, and its sloping lid was lowering upon a flaxen head and cowering little figure crouched within. Uncle Michael having put the room to rights, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... contentment; he snapped playfully at the mules, one black and the other a silvery grey, who turned their eyes upon him and showed their teeth; desperately he gave chase to a white cat with a tail that bristled like a feather-duster, then approached Manuel, who, seated in the sun, was nibbling at his bit of cheese and his slice of bread, waiting for something. They both ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... turned and hurried away. Her first leisure minute after reaching home she went to the library wearing one of Katy's big aprons, and carrying a brush and duster. Beginning at one end of each shelf, she took down the volumes she intended to sell, carefully dusted them, wiped their covers, and the place on which they had stood, and then opened and leafed through them so that no scrap ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Kelly to dress, and went back to the bungalow where Sylvia was busy with a duster trying to get rid of some of the sand that thickly covered everything. He had scarcely spoken to her that morning except for news Of Guy, but now he ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... Half the chairs were flung over in all directions, and two broken to pieces; a quantity of broken glass was heaped both on the floor and the table; dark wine stains on the carpet, and pools upon the table, not yet dry, were sufficient signs of what the night had been. Bessy stood in the window, duster in hand, picking up the chairs, and ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... report, her distress was very great. As she groaned, and wiped her wet, shrivelled eyes with a duster, she said— ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... Gray heard this he crowed very loudly, like a cock of spirit, and declared that old Mrs. Scratchard was envious because she had lost all her own tail-feathers, and looked more like a worn-out old feather duster than a respectable hen, and that therefore she was filled with sheer envy of anybody that was young and pretty. So young Mrs. Feathertop cackled gay defiance at her busy rubbishy neighbor, as she sunned herself under the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... way,' she whispered to Aster. 'We shall keep in shelter of that duster of cedars yonder. The robber chief comes this way.' Aster followed her guide without question; but she turned her head every few minutes to look for Roland. He was now far in the rear, but he was following the lead of the girls ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... washerwoman, laundress, dhobi^, laundryman, washerman^; scavenger, dustman^, sweep; white wings brush [U.S.]; broom, besom^, mop, rake, shovel, sieve, riddle, screen, filter; blotter. napkin, cloth, maukin^, malkin^, handkerchief, towel, sudary^; doyley^, doily, duster, sponge, mop, swab. cover, drugget^. wash, lotion, detergent, cathartic, purgative; purifier &c v.; disinfectant; aperient^; benzene, benzine benzol, benolin^; bleaching powder, chloride of lime, dentifrice, deobstruent^, laxative. V. be clean, render clean &c adj.; clean, cleanse; mundify^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... opened the door suddenly, and there, sure enough, was Eliza, stooping without. She flicked feebly at the wainscot with a duster, but ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... must be up an' doin' or he'd be dead afore dawn. I was so sound asleep I told him to set a mouse trap two times afore my senses come to me an' then when they did I was mad. I tell you I was good an' mad too. I put on my slippers an' father's duster as I always keep hangin' to my bedpost to slip on or dust with just as I feel to need it on or dustin', an' I went to Elijah. He was back layin' in bed done up in a sort o' ring o' rosy, groanin' an' takin' on an' openin' an' shuttin' his eyes like he thought he could make me feel ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... it. There were the usual listless black shadows haunting the veranda and outer offices—former slaves and still attached house-servants, arrested like lizards in breathless attitudes at the approach of strange footsteps, and still holding the brush, broom, duster, or home implement they had been lazily using, in their fixed hands. From the doorway of the detached kitchen, connected by a gallery to the wing of the mansion, "Aunt Martha," the cook, gazed also, ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... which you could write your name with your finger in the dust or blacks. The other side of the "things" is therefore now evenly dirtied or dusted. The housemaid then flaps every thing, or some things, not out of her reach, with a thing called a duster—the dust flies up, then re-settles more equally than it lay before the operation. The room has now been ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... little as she remembered that it was the mail for her long, foreign letter. This afternoon she was as happy as she wanted to be. Within half a mile of home she espied a tall figure coming towards her,—a figure in a long linen duster, wearing a gray, low-crowned, felt hat. After an instant she recognized Hollis and remembered that to-day he was expected home. She had not ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... morning. No answers came. But a little before noon, Thursday, Doan came. Came by automobile from the railroad, a man with him. Steve saw them as they drove into town; he noted Doan's thin face and his tall form in the gray linen duster; then he marked the man with ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... safety. Therefore, no house work of any kind should be done in the room, such as washing or drying the baby's clothes. The floors and the furniture should be wiped daily with damp cloths. A dry cloth or feather duster should never be used to scatter ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... illustrate, to elaborate, to criticise and illuminate, and make ever plainer and plainer the significance of animal and vegetable structure. It dealt from floor to ceiling and end to end with the Theory of the Forms of Life; the very duster by the blackboard was there to do its share in that work, the very washers in the taps; the room was more simply concentrated in aim even than a church. To that, perhaps, a large part of its satisfyingness ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... may be contorted from its proper shape. Ugly as he was, there was a marked expression of vigour about his face; but in direct contrast to M. Gosselin, he was deplorably lacking in cleanliness. While he was lecturing he would use his old cloak and the sleeves of his cassock as if it were a duster to wipe up anything; and his skull-cap, lined with cotton wool to protect him from neuralgia, formed a very ugly border round his head. With all that he was full of passion and eloquence, somewhat sarcastic at times, but witty and incisive. He had little literary culture, but he often ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... Never did duster flap more briskly than the one Rose used that day, and never was a room "scrabbled" to rights in such haste as hers. Tables and chairs flew into their places as if alive; curtains shook as if a gale was blowing; china rattled and small articles tumbled about as if ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... them both from the same satirically indifferent point of view. He called himself a pauper with a pedigree. He abandoned the entire direction of his household to the slatternly old woman who was his only servant, on the condition that she was never to venture near his books, with a duster in her hand, from one year's end to the other. His favorite poets were Horace and Pope; his chosen philosophers, Hobbes and Voltaire. He took his exercise and his fresh air under protest; and always walked ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Inventing grievances against her mistress, she punished her constantly by a persistent silence, which it was impossible to break. Then there would be periods of frenzied industry. Mademoiselle would hear through the partitions on all sides furious manipulation of the broom and duster, the sharp, vicious scrubbing and slamming of the servant whom one imagines muttering to herself as she maltreats the furniture: "Oh! yes, I'll ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... it is,' said poor Noggs, drawing from his pocket what seemed to be a very old duster, and wiping Kate's eyes with it, as gently as if she were an infant. 'You're giving way now. Yes, yes, very good; that's right, I like that. It was right not to give way before him. Yes, yes! Ha, ha, ha! Oh, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Susan, in a lovely voice, and as she spoke she involuntarily bent and swirled her limp muslins in such a way that she fairly suggested a moral duster. There was the making of an actress in Susan. Nobody had ever been able to decide what her true individual self was. Quite unconsciously, like a chameleon, she took upon herself the characteristics of even inanimate things. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... But the legislative axe has slashed Tom Green into a handful of counties hardly larger than European kingdoms. The legislature convenes at Austin, near the centre of the state; and, while the representative from the Rio Grande country is gathering his palm-leaf fan and his linen duster to set out for the capital, the Pan-handle solon winds his muffler above his well-buttoned overcoat and kicks the snow from his well-greased boots ready for the same journey. All this merely to hint that the big ex-republic of the Southwest forms a sizable star on ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... kitchen with a duster and crosses towards the bedroom. She is a pretty, stupid, and rather sluttish country girl of twenty, wearing a maid's ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... say nothing of the Merry Widow," says he, as I pushed past him, "and don't you be in a hurry, guv'nor, 'cause you've forgotten yer diamond collar. They won't say nothink up there, not if you was to go in a billycock 'at and a duster, s'welp me, they wouldn't——" But I didn't listen to him, and going up the front door steps by the policemen, I told them I was Lord Crossborough's driver, ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... wild shriek she dropped the fusee, and, springing from her seat, would have tried in her terror to rush from the room had she not been prevented by Miss Rowe, who, with admirable presence of mind, seized the duster from the blackboard, and with only that and her bare hands succeeded in stifling the flames. The whole class was in a panic. Jean Bannerman ran at once for Miss Hall, the teacher in the next room, and in a very short space of time Miss Lincoln herself arrived ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... his recitations for the day. Once Tom found him there hunched up in a corner of the window-seat while the chambermaid, viewing his presence distastefully, draped the furniture with bedding and did her best with broom and duster to discourage him from a repetition of the outrage. Between ten and eleven on three days a week Steve put in an hour of study in the room. On other days he managed to snatch two half-hour periods in the library between recitations. At six he was almost invariably awaiting the opening of the doors ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... gambling experiences I passed through all the states and conditions that a gambler is heir to. Some days found me able to peel ten and twenty-dollar bills from a roll, and others found me clad in a linen duster and carpet slippers. I finally caught up another method of earning money, and so did not have to depend entirely upon the caprices of fortune at the gaming table. Through continually listening to the music at the "Club," and through my own previous training, my natural ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... you are doing with the broom? Sweeping. How does the movement of the broom over the floor compare with the movement of the knife over the plate? It is similar. What would you take to remove the dust from the window-sill? A duster. What would you say you are doing? Dusting. How does the movement of the duster compare with the movement of the knife and the broom? It is similar. In all of these cases of dish, floor, and sill, how ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... hat; A Coptic priest from Ararat; An English girl with cheeks of rose; A Nihilist with Socratic nose; Paddy from Cork with baggage light And pockets stuffed with dynamite; A haughty Southern Readjuster, Wrapped in his pride and linen duster; Two noisy New York stockbrokers, And twenty British globe-trotters. To my disgust and vast surprise, They turned on me lack-lustre eyes, And each with dropped and wagging jaw Burst out into a wild guffaw: They laughed with huge mouths opened wide; They roared till each one held his ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... his arms and feet thrust into the legs of a pair of Pierre Grignon's trousers, and the capacious open top fastened upon his back. Doubled over, he waddled and hopped as well as he could. A feather duster was stuck in for a tail, and his woolly head gave him the uncanny look of a black harpy. To see him was to shed tears of laughter. The pouched turkey enjoyed being a pouched turkey. He strutted and gobbled, and ran at the girls; tried to pick up corn from the floor with his thick ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... dining-room, thrusting old newspapers and magazines between the cupboard and the wall, throwing the litter in the grate, which was clear, Friday having been charwoman's day, passing swiftly, lightly over the front of the furniture with the duster. It was Saturday, when she did not spend much time over the work. In the afternoon she was going out with Vera. That was not, however, what occupied her mind as she brushed aside her work. She had determined ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... room and its furniture, it is always best to use a carpet sweeper, a vacuum cleaner, or a damp cloth, as much as possible, the broom as little as may be, and the feather duster never. The two latter stir up disease germs resting peacefully on the floor or furniture, and set them floating in the air, where you can suck them ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... stopped the Major's apologies, and assured him, with something almost like laughter, that it was not of the slightest consequence. "Tea doesn't stain; I hope it has not gone on your coat;" and producing a duster from the cupboard, the evil, save the loss of the crockery, was remedied in a couple ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... training for the Carter. She had a hundred and twenty-five pounds of grossness to boil down before making track weight, but the opening spring handicap was five months off, and Crimmins believed in the "slow and sure" adage. Major Calvert, his old weather-beaten duster fluttering in the wind, took his accustomed perch on the rail, while Garrison prepared to get ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... feather duster and, opening a drawer, produced some sheets of paper—to the initiated eye plainly one of Mr. ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... large old-fashioned garden, separated on the further side by a low hedge from the old ivy-covered church. On the back steps of the church, Sextoness Jane was shaking out her duster. She was old and gray and insignificant looking; her duties as sexton, in which she had succeeded her father, were her great delight. The will with which she sang and worked now seemed to have in it something of reproach for the girl ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... exactly like the siren of Hook and Ladder Company Number One that used to go tearing about the streets in Leesville, U.S.A; a light flashed in one of the sheds, and everything disappeared in a burst of smoke, which spread itself in the air like a huge duster made from turkey feathers. There came another shriek, a little nearer, and the ground rose in a huge black mushroom, which boiled and writhed like the clouds of an advancing thunderstorm. Boom! Boom! Two vast, all-pervading ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... back at me, "I'm comparatively safe for the moment, and so is the matting. But before we do anything more, get a duster—a person like you is sure to have a duster in a drawer. Just so, there it is. Now wipe up the marks of my muddy feet in the room we first came into as well as this, and then see to the paint of the window. I have probably smirched ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... childish disaster. I had been making strenuous efforts to pull the tail out of the cat that I might use it for a feather duster. My desire was supreme logic. I could not understand objection; the cat resisted for certain utilitarian reasons of its own and my mother through humane sympathy. I had been scratched and spanked ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... with arms around the pilot's neck, and the second with his arms around him. They were dressed very much alike, each one having on his head an immaculate white straw hat, and over his coat a long—very long—linen duster, and they both had on gloves! Their trousers were pulled up as high as they could get them, giving a fine display of white hose and low shoes. The last one was having additional woe, for one leg of his trousers was slipping down, and of course it was impossible ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... hostesses costume can be combinations of several, as a decollete corsage, short walking skirt, one high-heeled slipper and one bedroom slipper, one side of her hair braided and hanging down and the other piled up high and decorated with feathers from the duster. Or she can dress as "Folly" with pointed black velvet bodice, white blouse, red and yellow striped skirts, pointed cap and wear a small black masque covering the upper part of the face, and carry a stick wound with red and yellow ribbon with tiny bells fastened by ribbons. If ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... red as the reddest cabbage rose, and with downcast eyes wiped the counter briskly with a duster. 'Why should you come here to ask for Mr Pendle?' said ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... properly interpreted and applied would spiritualize a broom and duster and all the utensils of a home or the ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... the bookseller's voice replied from far up the Alpine height of the shop-ladder, where he stood dusting stale volumes, as was his habit of a morning before customers came. 'I have never heard of it—probably never shall;' and he shook out the duster, so as to hit the delicate mean between stifling Christopher and ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... eleven o'clock, and when they reached the house were dismayed to find two furniture wagons, in front of the gate, already partly filled! Mrs. Peterkin was walking in and out of the open door, a large book in one hand, and a duster in the other, and she came to meet them in an agony of anxiety. What should they do? The furniture carts had appeared soon after the rest had left for Boston, and the men had insisted upon beginning to move the things. In vain had she shown Elizabeth Eliza's programme, in ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... to say, 'the side my heart is,'" said Mrs. Elliot, holding up the duster between them. "Most of us—I mean all of us—can feel on one side a little watch, that never stops ticking. So even if you had no bad foot you would still know which is the left. No. 50 white, please. ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... out fair and plain upon a brown cover, was exhaustive. Its frontispiece was a portrait of one Eliza Slocumb Holley, founder of the school, and on its back cover it bore the vignetted photograph of a very pretty graduate, in apron and cap, with her broom and feather duster. In between these two pictures were pages and pages of information, dozens of pictures. There were delightful long perspectives of model kitchens, of vegetable gardens, orchards, and dairies. There were pictures of girls making jam, and sterilizing bottles, and arranging ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... such attractive proportions as those she had prepared for the other baby; nor did the stitches appear so careful and minute, though Jane's worst enemy, if she had any, could not have accused her of putting bad work even into the hem of a duster, let alone a baby's frock. He also noticed that, industriously as she worked at the lavender print, her ardour was not sufficient to last beyond bedtime, and that, when the clock struck ten, her work was ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... memories of things which had frightened her as a child. And last of all, perhaps because without knowing it she had reached a great tree and sunk in a little heap at its foot, came the picture of a sallow youth in eye-glasses and a linen duster, who had once, ages ago, crashed through some ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... win a laugh and so lift her little role from the common rut of "lines" to the dignity of "a bit." For another, she seldom if ever brandished that age-honoured wand of her office, a bedraggled feather-duster. Nor was she by any means in love with ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... will do just as good work as the Boy Scouts will." She got up and commenced to walk around the room. Minnie, having finished her sewing, arose too and after a moment's thought produced from somewhere a silk duster, and began wiping off the ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... beads of perspiration on his forehead; his face was congested with excitement. To lend the touch of humor, which always lurks behind other people's tragedies, he held his top-hat by the brim in his right hand, as though he were taking a collection, while from his left, like a feather-duster, trailed an enormous bunch of roses. He was a short man in the late thirties, red-headed and inclined to be podgy. He was not built to express poetic passions—how many of us are, if it comes to that?—or to sustain their onslaught with dignity. Emotion seemed to have bloated him with ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... errand-maid, and general lion's-provider, and for the rest a very orderly creature, had no sovereign authority in this last citadel of Teufelsdroeckh; only some once in the month she half-forcibly made her may thither, with broom and duster, and (Teufelsdroeckh hastily saving his manuscripts) effected a partial clearance, a jail-delivery of such lumber as was not literary. These were her Erdbeben (earthquakes), which Teufelsdroeckh dreaded worse than the pestilence; nevertheless, to such length he had been forced ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... furniture and wallpapers. There was a marked tendency towards covers, covers for the chairs and sofas, tablecloths and covers for the tablecloths, covers for cushion-covers, antimacassars, lamp-stands, vase-stands and every kind of decorative duster. Everywhere the thick smell of concealed grime told of insufficient servants and ineffective sweeping. There was not one ornament or picture which recalled Japan, or gave a clue to the personal tastes of ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... in. Dorothea in the frock she had worn for five mornings during the week, and which was still clean and fresh; with her wonderful hair in a shining mass down her back, and a serviette in her hand (an extempore duster). It always took her the better part of Saturday to even find her own niche ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... you myself. I relied on you, Bunny, and you never more completely justified my confidence. The sad thing is that you have ceased to rely on me. Do you really think that I would leave the place in such a state that the first person who came in with a duster would see that there ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... Hen, standing on the bank, delivered himself of these remarks with infinite confusion, perspiring freely, and wiping his face with a duster, which he had brought by mistake instead of a handkerchief. He looked piteously at the Skipper, who stood leaning over the side, cheerfully inscrutable, clad in spotless white, and smoking a ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... think I provide bread and jam for you, indeed! Well, we'll very soon see! Take that!" and he struck the flies such a heavy blow with a duster that no fewer than seven lay dead upon the table, while the others flew up to ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... other, facing me. An old soldier came up to speak to me, and glancing down toward the other end of the table, he asked: "Is n't that old Harris of Tennessee?" When I replied that it was, he continued: "Well, well! The last time I saw him, he was wearing a linen- duster, riding a mule, and ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... broad of hip, but without an ounce of fat upon her. Her face was gaunt and brown: thin lips, long thin nose, gray eyes set deep, iron gray hair straggling over her forehead from under a dusty pink sunbonnet. She wore a linen duster buttoned close ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... is very scant time in which to robe in fancy costume, but most of the girls had decided during dinner what they meant to be. Romola flew to the kitchen and borrowed an apron from the cook, tied a duster round her head, seized up a pail and a carpet-sweeper, and came as 'Domestic Service.' Beata commandeered the boarders' bath-towels and appeared as an Arab, in robe and turban. Peggie, with her dormitory eider-down for a train, was a court ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... as Miss Stanhope was busy with broom and duster in the front part of the house, a young girl opened the gate, tripped gayly up the gravel walk that led from it across the lawn, and stepped upon the porch. She was a brunette with a very rich color ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... the scout. "Did you ever see a skunk-trap? Oughts is for mush-rats, and number ones is mostly used for 'coons and 'possums, and I guess they'd do for a skunk. But you and we'll call this here trap a number two, Duster, for the skunk I'm after is a big one. All you've to do is to ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... the kicking basket escaped from her arms, the lid burst open, and an extraordinarily large, healthy and indignant cat flew out, tail as big as a duster, and fled east on ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... paper to the right size, wrote "A" upon it, and stuck it to the side of the bottle with a dab of treacle—she had nothing else. She was hastily wiping off the surplus stickiness when the bell rang again. She finished what she was doing, and shrouded the bottle in a duster, so that there was another summons before she could set out. She took the Schiedam with her—of course it was that which was rung for, but also the bottle ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... the forlorn aspect of the room assisted to raise her spirits. It looked as though there might very well be a niche in such a household that she could fill. Mentally she proceeded to make a tour of the room, duster in hand, and she had just reached the point where, in imagination, she was about to place a great bowl of flowers in the middle desert of the table, when the elderly Abigail re-appeared and dumped a tea-tray down ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... furniture and black people, and nowhere the shout and cry of a baby. There was nobody to be anxious about,—nobody gone away or coming home, or to be wept for, or to be joyful for;—only their two stupid selves. Madam pottering about the great house, dusting with a feather duster all the knick-knacks that she had brought home from Europe, and that she might have just as well bought in New York after she got home; and he putting up books and taking them down, riding out on his white horse, and having somebody to dine once in a while,—could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... said, in bearing and appearance, a credit to an American drawing-room. Heaven forbid! Unless the writer possibly meant that after due training she would grace the drawing-room in cap and apron, wielding a duster in lieu of her ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... patiently hemmed squares of the rejected fabrics, with which to enrich the already lordly store of these useful commodities. On the present occasion she had hardly passed the door before she had decided that for drawing-room use nothing was really so good as a soft silk duster. The fate of the old check skirt ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... are nothing better than wild onion at heart. There are lives sown in out of the way places, and carelessly passed by as weeds, whose blossom angels might stoop to wear in the whiteness of their own pure breasts. Oh, to rid the world of its shams! To sweep away the "Chadbands" with a feather duster, as the new girl removes dust; to open the windows and shoo away the traitors as one drives flies, to hoe out society plats as one hoes garden beds, and thin out the flaunting weeds so that the lilies may find room to grow; to turn the strong ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... was flushed and breathing fast. Her fingers were busy with the feather-duster on her knee and ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... but she found the duster, and proceeded to put the rest of the room into nice order, laying a fresh towel over the bedside table, and arranging watch, medicine, and spoon within reach. Miss Jane lay and watched her. I think she was as much surprised ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... Street in the city of Saint Louis, with a friend, not long ago, my comrade suddenly stopped and excitedly pointed out a man across the way—"Look quick—there he goes!" exclaimed my friend, "that man with the derby and duster—see? That's the husband of Mrs. Lease of Kansas!" And all I could say was, "God ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... porter—or, rather, he has appointed himself—and his assumption of dignity is quite delicious. He has provided himself with a huge staff, and he behaves like the most tremendous janissary. He is about Rainie's size, as sharp as a needle, and possesses the remains of a brown shirt and a ragged kitchen duster as turban. I am very fond of little Achmet, and like to see him doing tableaux vivants from Murillo with a plate of broken victuals. The children of this place have become so insufferable about backsheesh that I have complained to the Maohn, ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... I can, auntie," he said, pulling at the shavings, and giving himself a rub with a duster in hopes that ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... a curious look in his laughing eyes. From the pockets of his long linen duster he drew a handful of beautiful scarlet ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... church. Slave 'omans had new calico dresses what dey wore wid hoopskirts dey made out of grapevines. Dey wore poke bonnets wid ruffles on 'em and, if de weather was sort of cool, dey wore shawls. Marster allus wore his linen duster. Dat was his white coat, made cutaway style wid long tails. De cloth for most all of de clothes was made at home. Marse Joe raised lots of sheep and de wool was used to make cloth for de winter clothes. Us had a great long loom house whar some of de slaves didn't do nothin' but weave ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... contemplate rushing in and carrying it away on their heads. Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her sister was within hearing said, "Stop the children, for God's sake! Bessy; don't let 'em come up the door-steps; Sally's bringing the old mat and the duster, to rub their shoes." ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... wore them well, but beyond this she gave us very little help. Rose, too (charmingly played by Miss Marie Loehr), who disguised herself as a dweller in Bethnal Green by the simple expedient of a duster pinned over her shoulders—how could Mr. Sutro expect her dainty skirt and smart white shoes to escape the eye of this "clever" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... the policeman's periodic 'Get up there! move on!' reinforced by a prod of his club or the toe of his boot. I slept there, or tried to when crowded out of the tenements in the Bend by their utter nastiness. Cold and wet weather had set in, and a linen duster was all that covered my back. There was a woolen blanket in my trunk which I had from home—the one, my mother had told me, in which I was wrapped when I was born; but the trunk was in the 'hotel' as security ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... stream of narrative which flowed on without interruption, no matter what Harriet was doing. Sometimes, when she was dusting the drawing-room mantelpiece, she would pause with a china cup in one hand and her duster in the other, to emphasise a thrilling incident, or make a speech impressive with suitable gesticulation; and sometimes, for the same purpose, she would stop with her hand on the yellowstone with which she was rubbing the kitchen-hearth, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... in his duster and goggles, standing in the road, too. But the girls who chatted so gaily, and shouted to the boy in the water, she could not see ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... were very rarely used, a most glorious muddle of the odds and ends and collections dear to the heart of a country lad, all of which were under an interdict not to be touched by the brush, broom, or duster of the maids. ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... he said aloud as he recovered his balance with the aid of the dashboard, disentangled his feet from the long skirts of his linen duster and sprang over the wheel with the alacrity of a man who took a keen interest ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... reins, while her male companion descended heavily, putting both feet upon the step, and cautiously lowering himself to the ground close beside the spot where Flint and Brady stood. Once assured that he had reached the ground in safety, he proceeded to take off his wrinkled duster, fold it tenderly, and lay it on the seat, from beneath which he pulled out a bulky bundle, securely ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... be filled with oil from a feeder and afterward well wiped with a cloth or rag. Small sticks, covered with wash-leather pads, are the best things to use for cleaning the inside of the chimney, and a clean duster for polishing the outside. Chimneys should not be washed. The globe of a lamp should be occasionally washed in warm soap-and-water, then well rinsed in cold water, and either wiped dry or ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... carefully up in a duster and letting it fly through the window.] The sign of a stranger, ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... for an hour and a quarter, and at the end he wiped his brows with the blackboard duster under the impression that it was his handkerchief. Meanwhile Tommy had eaten three apples, caught four flies, written "Kiser" in chalk on the back of the boy in front of him, exchanged a catapult with Jones minor for a knife, cut his finger, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... I dusted, looking all the time as if he had just taken a dose of medicine. So I often do a few books at a time, as I can, when he is not in the way to be worried with it. But he always knows where I have been with my duster and long-haired brush. And now it came across me that I had better dust some books first of all, as it was a good chance, he being sound asleep. So I lighted my lamp, went straight to the study, and began where I ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... and dusted the room that morning, after the departure of Mrs. Thomas, who had busied herself in them, for a short time, and ineffectually, with a dustpan, a brush, and a duster, so that there was no cleaning to be done. Presently it occurred to her that perhaps there might be some holes in the linen of her host which would be the better for her mending. A brief examination of his wardrobe showed her that her surmise was accurate: there was at least a month's ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... object that he encountered was Allan's dressing-case, turned upside down, with half the contents scattered on the floor, and with a duster and a hearth-broom lying among them. Replacing the various objects which formed the furniture of the dressing-case one by one, Midwinter lighted unexpectedly on a miniature portrait, of the old-fashioned oval form, primly framed in a setting ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... look!—me ould fayther, wanst, waked me in the night sayin' as a gang o' burglars was downstairs lootin' the family silver. Well, lad, bein' but half awake I believed 'im, an' the goose flesh growed out on me ar-rms so that—'tis the truth I'm tellin' ye—I plucked enough for a parlor duster! But whin I got downstairs investigatin', the gang was no more'n a loose shutter flappin' in the wind. The burglars was just a noise—d'ye git me? No danger, but a noise—an' w'ot's a noise? Ye see, Jeb, 'twas ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... Maria Clara consumed her impatience in working at a silk purse while her aunt was trying to clean up the traces of the former night's revelry by swinging a feather duster about. Capitan Tiago was busy looking over some papers. Every noise in the street, every carriage that passed, caused the maiden to tremble and quickened the beatings of her heart. Now she wished that she were back in the quiet convent ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... invited you?" said the Tailor, and chased the unwelcome guests away. But the flies, who didn't understand English, refused to let themselves be warned off, and returned again in even greater numbers. At last the Tailor, losing all patience, reached out of his chimney- corner for a duster, and exclaiming, "Wait, and I'll give it to you!" he beat them mercilessly with it. When he left off he counted the slain, and no fewer than seven lay dead before him with outstretched legs. "What a brave fellow I am!" said he, and was filled with admiration at his own courage. "The ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... of Sir George's room, and stood on the mat, calmly gazing within, the brush in one hand and a duster in the other. ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... Where, in that case, would Keats be beside Hood? In our day, where would Sara Teasdale be beside Edwin Markham? Is there not danger that the poet, once launched on a career as an agitator, will no longer have time to dream dreams? If he bases his claims of worth on his ability as a "carpet-duster," [Footnote: See Aurora Leigh.] as Mrs. Browning calls the agitator, he is merely unsettling society,—for what end? He himself will soon have forgotten—will have become as salt that has lost its savor. ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... exclaimed Buck, who, as the boys could now see, was a big, red-faced chap, clad in a linen auto-duster, combined with which his sombrero, with ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... dressed as a fat country man with a linen duster and whiskers and baggy umbrella. Patsy Moriarty (Patrici really. Did you ever hear such a name? Mrs. Lippett couldn't have done better) who is tall and thin was Julia's wife in a absurd green bonnet over one ear. Waves of laughter followed them ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... tailor, and chased the unwelcome guests away. But the flies, who didn't understand English, refused to let themselves be warned off, and returned again in even greater numbers. At last the little tailor, losing all patience, reached out of his chimney corner for a duster, and exclaiming: "Wait, and I'll give it to you," he beat them mercilessly with it. When he left off he counted the slain, and no fewer than seven lay dead before him with outstretched legs. "What a desperate fellow I am!" said he, and was filled with admiration ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... not ragged enough to produce the requisite amount of stock for its own paper mills. Nearly all the rags used by the Denison Mills (and by others in various parts of the country as well) are imported from the old countries. All the rags first go through the "duster." This is a big cylindrical shell of coarse wire netting. It is rapidly revolved, while a screw running through its center is turned in the opposite direction. Air currents are forced through it by a power fan. The rags are continuously ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... young woman of fashion in street dress standing before a portiere which she seems about to push aside in order to enter another room. Manet studied the composition for a while, and noting a feather duster elaborately painted which lies on the floor beside the lady, exclaimed: "Tiens! elle a done un rendezvous avec ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... busied herself about the suite, clearing away the breakfast, sponging off the oilcloth table-spread, making the bed, pottering about with a broom or duster or cleaning rag. Towards ten o'clock she opened the windows to air the rooms, then put on her drab jacket, her little round turban with its red wing, took the butcher's and grocer's books from the knife basket in the ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... out. The dull look of the house appears to be communicated to the countenance of the master thereof. I confess that I have often been half inclined to wax and cork my husband's visage, or at least to whisk over it with the duster, and see if that experiment would ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... abundant, flowers on vines, plants, shrubs, and trees, tall stalks with massive heads, and dainty little blossoms by the wayside. Brilliant flowering trees are planted to line the roadsides. Among all the tree-growths, the royal palm is notable. Scoffers have likened it to "a feather duster stood on end," but it is the prominent feature in most of Cuba's landscape, and it serves many purposes other than that of mere decoration. From its stem the Cuban peasant builds his little cottage which he roofs with its leaves. Medicinal qualities are claimed for its roots. From different parts ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... Nancy, "any one can see you was born a gentleman; and I am a deal prouder to have you and your washing than I should him as pays you your wages. Pale eyes—pale hair—pale eyebrows—I wouldn't trust him to mangle a duster." ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... pretty little breakfast-cap, is moving about the room with a feather-duster, whisking invisible dust from the picture-frames, and talking with the Parson, who has just come in, and is thawing the snow from his boots on the hearth. The Parson says the thermometer is 15 deg., and going down; that there is a snowdrift across ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... good sign," says another writer, "when girlish voices carol over the steaming dish-pan or the mending-basket, when the broom moves rhythmically, and the duster flourishes in time to some brisk melody. We are sure that the dishes shine more brightly, and that the sweeping and dusting and mending are more satisfactory because of this running accompaniment of ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Pinckney's walking-stick from him and, with the end of it, picked up a duster that the mysterious Dinah, evidently, had ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... material, but cut after a style more prononce than was then seen in Canada, or has ever since been much in vogue here. His hat was a broad-brimmed Panama, which cost twenty dollars if it cost a penny. His coat, so far as could be seen under his thin summer duster—was of fine bluish cloth, short of waist, long of skirt, and—the duster notwithstanding—plentifully besprinkled and travel-stained with dust. The waistcoat, which seemed to be of the same material as the coat, was very open-breasted, and displayed a considerable array of shirt front. Across ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... yourself face to face with every-day happenings of phenomena. Life then seemed to be made up of the abnormal, in the sense in which that word is used. The normal for the time being had disappeared. If a duster had to be hemmed, an elemental did it. If pencils were needed, a hand was put forward, twisted the pencils about, and there were twelve in place of the one, and so on. Much greater people than H.P.B. ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... for the next day's breakfast. It was not an elaborate preparation. She "dumped" a box of knives and forks at each end of it, and then proceeded to chase any odd bits of debris from the last meal on to the floor with a duster. Then, with a hand-broom and pan, she took these up and with them any other rubbish that might be lying about. Finally, she set jugs of drinking water at intervals down the center of the table, and her ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... woman, thought very "differently." Work and babies she consigned to a thrifty trooper's wife and, in a jiffy, pinned on a bonnet that had stood various seasons. "I'll be back in the morning," she said, with a kiss for each of the seven. Then, stuffing a tidbit or two into the wide pockets of a duster, she ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... the evening. He said that he was working. Anything is possible, isn't it? And Gervaise, although she had been caught many and many a time, had ended by relying on this coin. After all sorts of incidents, she herself couldn't find as much as a duster to wash in the whole neighborhood; and even an old lady, whose rooms she did, had just given her the sack, charging her with swilling her liqueurs. No one would engage her, she was washed up everywhere; and this secretly suited her, for she had fallen to that state of indifference ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... pulled open the drawer and let the Oni get out, held up broom and duster, as if to take oath. ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... and, as our roads lay in the same direction, had gone on walking and talking till we came to Mueller's own door in the Rue Clovis. I accepted the invitation, and followed him in. The portiere, a sour-looking, bent old woman with a very dirty duster tied about her head, hobbled out from her little dark den at the foot of the stairs, and handed him the ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... because you think of your own kitchen at home with its black pans and unpleasant looking sink. There are no black pans in a German kitchen; you never see any grease, and you never by any chance see a teacloth or a duster with a hole in it. An English kitchen in a small household is furnished with more regard to the comfort of the servants than a German one, and with less concern for the work to be done there. We supply comfortable chairs, a coloured table-cloth, oil-cloth, books, hearth-rug, pictures, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... spend the afternoon downtown, and she wondered what was troubling him. The novelty of the drive, however, quickly won her to the best of spirits. Mrs. Owen appeared ready for this adventure with her tall figure wrapped in a linen "duster." Her hat was a practical affair of straw, unadorned save by a black ribbon. As she drew on her gloves in the porte-cochere the old coachman held the heads of two horses that were hitched to a smart road wagon. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... said Sandy. "Do you?" The old woman-shyness had come over him, fighting with his knowledge of the child who had changed into a woman. And the pongee duster deceived him. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
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