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More "Housework" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for about a month when I was 21. It happened because I had nothing to do while visiting my mother before returning to University except help with housework and prepare meals. The food available in the backwoods of central B.C. didn't appeal to me because it was mostly canned vegetables, canned milk, canned moose meat and bear meat stews with lots of gravy and greasy potatoes. I decided to pass on it altogether. ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... about the factory, and what Mrs. Snawdor says about housework, and what somebody says about everything I start to do. Looks like being a nice girl ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Mediaeval Methods of Industry.—Outside of the tilling of the soil, the early industries were centred in the home, which gave rise to the well-known house system of {431} culture. "Housework" has primary relation to goods which are created for the needs of the household. Much of the early manufacturing industry was carried on within the household. Gradually this has disappeared to a large extent through the multiplication of industries outside the home, power manufacture, ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... week Old Tarwater was up and limping about the housework of the cabin, cooking and dish-washing for the five men of the creek. Genuine sourdoughs (pioneers) they were, tough and hard-bitten, who had been buried so deeply inside the Circle that they did not know there was a Klondike ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... name was Harmony Vickers—was doing her part in that little brick house which the Colonel had taken Lane to see. There she worked and saved, treating her husband's money like a sacred fund to be treasured. When the colonel came home from his weekly trips, he helped in the housework, and nursed the boy through the croup at night, saving his wife where he could. It was long after success had begun to look their way before Mrs. Price would consent to move into the wooden cottage on a quiet cross street that the Colonel wanted to buy, or employ more than one servant. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... "No housework, no cooking! Clothes made for me especial? Not hand-me-downs an' left-overs? No kids to ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... the house agin. She is out in a minute with a clipping from a newspaper and hands it over to Doctor Kirby, as proud as a kid with copper-toed boots. The doctor reads it all the way through, and then he hands it back without saying a word. The old lady goes away to fiddle around about the housework purty soon and the old man looks at the ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... countenance. Physically they were well proportioned. Some of the men and women had fine figures, strong and robust, and many of the women were powerful and of unusual height. The greater portion of the work fell to the lot of the women, who looked after the housework, tilled the land, laid up a store of wood for the winter, beat the hemp and spun it, and made fishing nets from the thread. They also gathered in the harvest and prepared it for food. The occupation ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... room, nor did she know for what reason. Nor was her next action any impulse of her own. Mechanically she set about the housework of her home. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... free-love affair appeared, but an elderly woman in spectacles who had once been Professor Moreton's cook, and now, doing all the housework for Ben, contrived to make him so comfortable that the editor of a more radical paper than his own had described the flat as "a ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... When all the housework was finished, the girls dressed the happy, wriggling baby in his blue highwayman coat and three-cornered hat, and kept him amused while mother changed her dress and got ready to take him over to granny's. Mother always went to granny's every Saturday, and generally some of the children went with ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... till I became really desperate, and so was in a fit state to agree to a plan proposed by a schoolmate—to run away. She too had troubles at home; her mother made her help in the housework; she had to wash dishes when she wanted to play out ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... Sunday, when solemn feelings almost irresistibly make their way into the heart, almost as on the eve of her confirmation, so Freneli felt on the eve of her wedding. Thoughtfully and seriously she did her housework; perhaps she had never spoken so little as on that day. At times she felt like weeping, and still she had a friendly smile for all she met. Then again she would sink into deep reflection, in which she forgot place and time and everything; she knew nothing of herself, nothing of this brooding. Then ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... was a little wee girl. Well, one day I was reading, and Aunt Caroline happened to come in. She despised reading, and thought it was an utter waste of time, and that I ought to sew or knit all the time, since I could not help Mother with the housework. She was very practical herself, and a famous housekeeper. So she looked at me, and frowned, and said, 'Well, Pink, mooning away over a book as usual? Useless rubbish! yer ma'd ought to keep ye at work.' I didn't say anything; I never said much to Aunt Caroline, because I ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... time playing house." Having nothing else to do, I really enjoyed it. I have swept and dusted, and handled all my little treasures, touching everything with a queer sensation—it had all become so very precious. All the time my thoughts flew back to the past. That is the prettiest thing about housework—one can think of such nice things when one is working with one's hands, and is alone. I don't wonder Burns wrote verses as he followed ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... her bookcase, and went at housework as if it were a five-barred gate; of course she missed the leap, but scrambled bravely through, and appeared much sobered by the exercise. Sally had departed to sit under a vine and fig-tree of her own, so Di had undisputed sway; but if dish-pans and dusters ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... but reduce us all—we who are the defenders of the people—to being slaves," he said with some asperity. "Your class has had its innings long enough, it would be the best thing in the world for you to have to come down to doing your own housework." ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... returned from Philadelphia in February, 1853. Miss Mary Walker had taught the school during her absence. Shortly after her return to Mt. Hope, Miss Abigail Peck and Miss Cinderella Britto arrived, the former to teach school, the latter to assist in housework, Miss Thayer to have general supervision as matron of the boarding school. The American Board doubled their appropriation, so that each one of the ladies were to receive one hundred dollars a year, and find their own board. Miss Thayer taking ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... I had Kaetchen to help me in the housework, and whatever we did pleased my brave old father, who was always gentle and indulgent towards us women, though he was stern enough with the apprentices in the mill. Karl, the oldest of these, was his favourite; and I can see now ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... But ma, poor soul, because of that twist her mind had taken through sorrow, was always seeing something wrong in everything we did; she never could be quiet or contented. The boys didn't get so much of it: they were off out of doors and later at their trades; but me, I was kept in to help with the housework, and kept in for company, and kept in for no other reason, I guess, than because my wicked heart longed so to go out and play with the girls and boys. I dare say it was good for me. Ma meant all right, that I know, but ma was all along a sick woman. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... her because she goes to the altar with her head full of book learning, her hands of no earthly use, save for the piano and brush; because she has no conception of the duties and responsibilities of a wife; because she hates housework, hates its everlasting routine and ever recurring duties; because she hates children and will adopt every means to evade motherhood; because she loves her ease, loves to have her will supreme, loves, oh how well, to be free to go and come, to let the days slip ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... equal to applying for the position of general housework man, if I lose my job. I can sew—you ought to see the elegant patch I put on the seat of my old blues—I can 'scrub and wash' clothes, I can sweep beautifully, I can make a bed with neatness and despatch. And I have been known to get on my ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... the bread, to save Mrs. Lively's back; that he did most of the family washing—that is, he did the rubbing, the wringing, the lifting, the hanging out—and once a week he scrubbed. When he wasn't "doing housework" he was in his office, busy, not with patients, but in writing articles for magazines and papers. Then he set to work upon a book, at which he toiled hopefully during the dreary winter, for he was almost ignored as a physician, although there seemed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... I suppose, and you see people, and get plenty of time for reading, and the pay is better than I could get at anything else. The fact is," she began to gain confidence as she talked, "I don't want to go on in the old humdrum way forever, doing housework and sewing, and never getting a chance at anything better. I have enough to eat and to wear at home, but the soul has some claims too, and I long for the contact of higher natures than those by whom I am now surrounded. I want opportunities for self-culture, ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... unguents healing, or dye for the whiskers, or salve for the corns, or something that quickens egg-laying in chickens, or knobs for the cattle to wear on their horns. It's no use your talking, you'd better be walking, and let me go on with my housework, I think; you look dissipated, if truth must be stated, and if you had money ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... show my work-card in the stores; I had usually forgotten to bring it, or sometimes I had brought my husband's card, which would not do at all, unless I could say that I had been ill or disabled, for a woman is expected to work quite the same as a man. Of course her housework counts, and as we are on a sort of public mission, they count our hours of travel as working-hours, especially as Aristides has made it a point of good citizenship for us to stop every now and then and join in the Obligatories when the villagers were getting in the farm crops or quarrying ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... one thing sure," she said proudly to Mrs. Reist, "our Amanda ain't lazy. It seems to abody she's workin' more'n ever this here spring. I guess mebbe she thinks she better get all the ins and outs o' housework so as she can do it right ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... "that women nowadays, having been relieved of the burden of housework, have no employment but the cultivation ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... this house where for hours now I have been sitting and writing. She is a tall woman with black hair, turning a little grey. Listen, she is going softly up a flight of stairs. All day she goes softly about, doing the housework in ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... connection with Shenac, for this winter was a very busy time with her. True, her work did not press upon her, so as to make her anxious or impatient, as it sometimes used to do in summer; but she was never idle. There were sewing and housework and a little wool-spinning, and much knitting of stockings and mittens for them all. The knitting was evening work, and, when Hamish was not reading aloud, Shenac's hands and eyes were busy with different matters. She ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... other people knew about the advent of the Mr. Foxleys. Had there been a sister or a daughter, or a wife or a mother, or an aunt or a cousin about the farm, he would have known very quickly. As it was, the girl who did the housework on the farm was as ignorant of gossip, its existence and the laws which govern its nature, as any male farm hand could be. When Farmer Wise put up his horses at the Inn three or four times a year, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... this, though I had a notion that Donna Battestina was of a saving disposition. I had heard the pair of them protest when the Princess offered to make herself useful in the farm-work—for which she was plainly unfit—or, failing that, in the housework. They had made up their minds about us, that we were persons of gentle blood, to whom all ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... solution of the "servant problem" will not be that every woman will do all her own housework, but that domestic work will become, on the one hand, very much simplified and, on the other, will be put on the same footing as teaching, nursing or secretarial work. That we are beginning to move in this direction is evidenced by the coming into existence of schools of domestic economy, ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... concession to the drabness of married life. Alix, after meeting some of the other wives at the mine—there were but five or six—saw that Cherry had been affected by them. There was general sighing over the housework, a mild conviction that men were all selfish and unreasonable. "And I must say," Alix's first letter to her father admitted, "that the men here are all dogs, except the ones ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... from some station on the railroad over toward the pass. She was just about all in; and, of course, Nelly had her into the house and was fixing her up in no time. She wanted to work, but admitted that she had never done much housework. She said, straight out, that they should never know more about her than they knew, then; but insisted that she was not a bad woman. At first, Will and I were against it for, of course, it was easy to see that she was ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... from the rocky farm that the father and mother looked about them to see how they could add to it. Miranda Conwell turned to her needle and often sewed far into the night, making coats, neckties, any work she could obtain that would bring in a few dollars. She was never idle. The moment her housework was done, her needle was flying, and Russell had ever before him the picture of his patient mother, working, ever working, for the family good. The only time her hands rested was when she read her children such stories and pointed such lessons as she knew were needed to develop childish minds and ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... bad for both of us!" Jenny did not think so really; but she said it. She thought Emmy had the bread and butter pudding nature, and that she did not greatly care what she ate as long as it was not too fattening. Jenny thought of Emmy as born for housework and cooking—of stew and bread puddings. For herself she had dreamed a nobler destiny, a destiny of romance, of delicious unknown things, romantic and indescribably exciting. She was to have the adventures, ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... if the bristles had a sense of some horror, as if things inanimate still partook of men's dread at men's deeds. If you passed through the corridor and saw in the shadow of the wall that homeliest of instruments cast away and forgotten, you would smile at the slatternly housework. But if you knew that a corpse had been borne down those stairs to the left,—borne along those floors to that marriage-bed,—with the blood oozing and gushing and plashing below as the bearers passed with ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... forget that every housewife was something of a physician, and the gathering and drying of herbs, the making of ointments and salve, the distilling of bitters, and the boiling of syrups was then as much a part of housework as it is to-day a part of a ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... moth was mounted, and the housework finished. Elnora said to her mother, "If you don't mind, I believe I will go into the woods pasture beside Sleepy Snake Creek and see if I can catch some ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... housework would sigh, Till SAPOLIO I urged her to trigh, Now she changes her tune, For she's done work at nune, Which accounts for the light in ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... INDIVIDUAL REWARD UNDER TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.—As a typical example of disregard of individuality, the worker in the household may be cited, and especially the "general housework girl." Selected with no knowledge of her capabilities, and with little or no scientific or even systematized knowledge of the work that she is expected to do, there is little or no thought of a prescribed and definite task, no teaching specially adapted ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... life quite alone but for the occasional sight of the old negro couple that were waiting on him—Aunt Nancy, who did all his housework, and Uncle Ned, who worked in ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... intimately address her mistress by her Christian name. She enjoyed the right to engage in all conversations; she was, in short, "as good as anybody." The new Mrs. Windom was not long in transporting the general housework "girl" into a totally unexampled state of astonishment. This "girl,"—aged forty-five and a prominent member of the Methodist Church,—announced to everybody in the community except to Mrs. Windom herself ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... tradespeople save milkman and baker being allowed to call, and they remarked that they never once found the area gate unlocked. And while these two women, prim and self-contained, went on with the cooking and housework and kept the doorstep clean, the so-called Miss Adela Mimpriss went on with the woolwork flowers at the dining-room window, where she could get most light, and the world outside had no suspicion of anything being wrong in the staid, old-fashioned house ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... at her father. "What do you think of all this, sir?" she asked. "If I stay at home, dismiss Delia, and do the housework myself, and Lanse finds some suitable position, can't we get on? Charlotte can put off the school of design another year. We will all be very ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... feelings, too, which he could not fathom. His trouble was clearer to her than to him; as heavy to bear. To her mind, trained in all the minutiae of domestic economy, the Warden family lived in careless wastefulness. That five women—for Dora was older than she had been when she began to do housework—should require servants, seemed to this New England-born girl mere laziness and pride. That two voting women over twenty should prefer being supported by their brother to supporting themselves, she condemned even more sharply. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... she knew enough to come home, when she was hungry. Best let her go her ways, then. She would learn to be a little woman, all the sooner; and, in the meantime, it was a great deal easier to do the housework without having a child ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... It couldn't bring anything about. It snatched at the minutes left over from Roddy and the house and Mamma and the piano. You knew what every day would be like. You would get up early to practise. When the cooking and the housework was done Roddy would want you. You would play tennis together with Mr. Sutcliffe and Dorsy Heron. Or you would go up on to the moors and comfort Roddy while he talked about the "things" he had done in Canada and about getting away and about the dog. You would say over and over again, "You ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... and soon her hair was flying in the wind, as she ran into the house for her handled mop. She looked first in the parlor, and then in the front hall; but at last she found it in the wash-room. She was very sly about it, for she was not sure Ruthie would approve of this kind of housework. Then Charlie tugged out a pail of water, and dipped in the mop; and between them both they thrust it through the opening of the pen, upon piggy's back. But the dirty creature did not love clean water. When he felt the mop coming ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... were pleasant and busy ones for Peggy and Sally. True to their resolve to accept with cheerfulness whatever befell, their gay spirits softened and enlivened the gloom which might otherwise have settled upon the family. The mornings were devoted to housework and cookery; the afternoons to quilting the homespun bed-quilt which Sally had noticed in the frames on the night of their arrival. In the evenings all gathered about the great fireplace and indulged in such recreations as the farmhouse afforded. The girls ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... mentioned. The efficient kitchen devised in such an interesting and clever way has no place in it. Its exclusive object is to suggest a satisfactory and workable solution along modern lines of how to get one's housework efficiently performed ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... only did the public stores furnish the public employees with every kind of goods for consumption, but the Government likewise organized all sorts of needful services, such as cooking, laundry work, housework agencies, etc., for the exclusive benefit of public employees—all, of course, conducted absolutely at cost. The result was that the public employee was able to be supplied at home or in restaurants with food prepared by the best skill out of the best material and in the greatest possible variety, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... wonder sometimes at her boundless energy. She would whirl through the housework, help prepare the meals, do a morning's ironing, run the sewing machine all afternoon, and then often, after supper, challenge Norman to some such thing as a bonfire race, to see which could rake up the greatest pile of autumn leaves in the ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... something outside to do if I could. I tried here and there, but without success; at last my eye caught a notice in the Farmer's Friend, just the same kind of notice as that you are speaking of, Lottie: 'Wanted, a capable, steady girl to assist in housework and take care of children. Address, with reference, A. B. C., Dashville.' I talked it over with mother, and she agreed with me; father didn't take so kindly to the idea, naturally; he likes to have us all at home, especially in summer. ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... jewel of a maid—lied to me with every second breath. There have been moments when I've wished I was the daughter of a poor New England minister—living in a little white house under a couple of elms and doing all the housework." ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... your violin, too, uncle Tony, even if the ladies don't faint away in heaps, and if the kitchen doesn't look like a battle-field when you've finished. I'm glad it doesn't, for my part, for I should have more housework to do ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... more attempts to get writing to do, she said to herself, in a fit of humility and good sense: "I'll begin at the beginning, and work my way up. I'll put my pride in my pocket, and go out to service. Housework I like, and can do well, thanks to Aunt Betsey. I never thought it degradation to do it for her, so why should I mind doing it for others if they pay for it? It isn't what I want, but it's better than idleness, so ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... you've got when you sense your power with men first; but that wears off when you get your bearings and find out that it's only a shuffle in the game, anyway. Land of love! if man and woman was all, then when they came face to face with life they would get smashed; but housework tempers the matter powerfully; and man's work out among other men; and then when children come and you have to contrive and pinch, why you just plod along and don't ever get flustered. It's just the first dash of cold water in the face, child; after ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... Women in Society. Parliamentary law. Games. Book-reviewing. Manuscript-reading for publishers. Library work. Teaching music and painting. Home study of professional housework. The unmarried daughter at home. The woman in business. Her relation to her employer. Securing an increase of salary. The woman of independent means. Her ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... before the house is, I presume, who's going to wash them?" Rupert grinned. "This seems to be as good a time as any to put some sort of a working plan in force. There is a certain amount of so-called housework which has to be done. And there are three of us to do it. It's up to us to apportion it fairly. Shall we say, let everyone care for ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... them shoes. It was pitiful to see a nice, interesting girl, like Maria, go about looking as she did, while her father was piling his money into the bank. She wanted to go to school and learn music, and be somebody; but he wouldn't keep a hired girl, and so she was obliged to stay at home and do housework; and she could no more have got a dollar out of him to pay for clothes and tuition than you could squeeze sap ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge
... was usual to have all the preparations and the housework completed by early in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and after an early tea in parlour and kitchen—the servants, clean and neat, piled up the Yule clogs in the rooms, getting the large ones well alight, and keeping them going ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... earned, and were quite content to pass their evenings with her and their little sister. Katie, who was now thirteen, had always attended the public school in the village, of course helping her mother with the housework and sewing. She was a delicate little creature, small for her years, but bright and intelligent, a general favorite with the village children as well as with her Sunday-school teacher, Miss Etta Mountjoy, who was not so very many ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... said, with a sigh; "now I will dry the dishes for you.... You didn't mention the fact, when you engaged me, that I was also expected to do general housework." ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... the daughter of a forger who died in prison. Her mother, I believe, died of a broken heart. Sad experience for so young a girl. She seems to be a good little thing. She is working at housework in town, I believe. I understand she has an idea of entering college in the fall. You are entering college here? That will be delightful. My wife and I will take pleasure in calling on you as soon as you are ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... The housework is speeded up with such conveniences as hot and cold water in kitchen and bathroom, and steam heat. The kitchen is an efficient little workshop lined by cupboards and shelves. Mrs. Tupper can sit before her kitchen cabinet and prepare a meal without moving about for ingredients and utensils. ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... beam and fell. For a few months he lay sick, and all their household goods found their way to the pawn-shop; then he died, and then they came to the "Ark." Their mother did washing out of doors, but at last she became queer in the head. She could not bear unhappiness, and neglected her housework, to run about seeking consolation from all sorts of religious sects. At last she was quite demented, and one day she disappeared. It was believed that she had drowned herself in the canal. "But things ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... I was so run down that I could not spank the baby. After taking three bottles of your Elegant Elixir I am now able to thrash my husband in addition to my other housework. God bless you!" ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... farewell as he disappeared into the woods, then, to occupy herself, she helped Evangelina with what little housework there was to do, later going with her to the garden patch where the ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... the other. "A man's hand, Dozier. People has an idea that because women mostly do housework men are out of place in a kitchen. It ain't so. Men just got somethin' more important on their hands most of the time." His eyes glanced sadly toward his gun rack. "Women is a pile overpraised, Dozier. I ask you, man to man, did you ever see ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... men still straggling home through Germany and Belgium—the remnants of Napoleon's Grand Army—ex-prisoners of war, or scattered units who had found their weary way home at last, shoeless, coatless, half starved and perished from cold and privations, unfit for housework, for agriculture, or for industry, fit only to follow their fallen hero, as they had done through a quarter of a century, ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... spend whole days in useless shopping. Theirs was a respectable neighborhood of well-paid artisans, bookkeepers, and small shopkeepers. The women did their own housework in drab garments and soiled boudoir caps that hid a multitude of unkempt heads. They seemed to find a great deal of time for amiable, empty gabbling From seven to four you might see a pair of boudoir caps leaning from opposite bedroom windows, ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... keep the house looking perfectly spick and span, and I make hot bread twice a day, because Oliver is so fond of it. He is just as sweet and dear as he can be and wants to help about everything, but I hate to see him doing housework. Somehow it doesn't seem to me to look manly. We have had our first quarrel about who is to get up and make the fires in the morning. Oliver insisted that he was to do it, but I wake so much earlier than he does, because I've got the bread on my mind, that I almost ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... accumulated for the setting-up of their housekeeping, but had never invited her to an inspection. No human eye was to behold them till Harry had his first look. In fact, nobody had ever been inside his cottage; he did his own housework, and he guarded his son's privilege so jealously that the small objects of domestic use he bought sometimes in the town were smuggled rapidly across the front garden under his canvas coat. Then, coming out, he would remark apologetically, ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... the housework was done almost entirely by the mother of the family and her daughters, or by a girl taken to "bring up;" but latterly the more troublesome element of an Irish girl in the kitchen has become general, for the daughter of the farmer ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... should never be allowed to do that; I must go to school every day, and then I have my exercises to do, and to help mother with the housework; the baby to mind; and—O I am ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... prophesied before we left England that, after turning the house up-side down and making the men very uncomfortable with our cleanings, we should then go on strike, it has not been altogether fulfilled. We certainly did try to clean up a bit, but we still help in housework, and have to do as the servants at home. If we expect visitors, or on a Sunday, put on a tidy gown; otherwise we generally live in the oldest of frocks (which are more or less stained with either mud ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... their door, To zee em in their pleace, A-doen housework up avore Their smilen mother's feace; You'd cry—"Why if a man would wive An' thrive, 'ithout a dower, Then let en look en out a wife In Blackmwore ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... downstairs, nor after she went to bed at night, except by candlelight, and she could not, of course, burn candles. So Mrs. Perry had to be taken into the secret, and Huldah worked in comfort by the fire in the afternoons, after she had done her housework. ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... girl!" I said, and hobbled away to finish the housework, but my heart seemed to take on a pair of pure white wings, like dove's wings. I forgot withal ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... during those seven years. Agnella had taught her how to do housework. In other things, Ourson had been her teacher. He had taught her to read, write and keep accounts and he often read aloud to her while she was sewing. Instructive and amusing books were found in her room without any one knowing where they came ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... along with her housework, toiling doggedly from five in the morning until half-past nine or ten at night. Beulah's departure had left all the labours of the home upon her hands; her husband had made no suggestion of securing help, and she had not asked any. The new man ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... replied that he thought he knew of one that would suit, and that he would let me know the next day. I also telephoned two "want ads." to a morning paper, one for an experienced farm-hand, the other for a woman to do general housework in the country. Polly was to interview the women who applied, and I was to look after the men. That night I ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... or mother, lending a hand at housework when needed, nourishing himself on the simple oatmeal and milk which throughout life remained his favourite food, submitting himself instinctively to the stern discipline of the home, he passed, happily on the whole, through his childhood and soon outstripped his comrades in ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... day most of them found refuge for a time in the doctrines of Swedenborg. My mother was always reticent upon religious subjects. She never mentioned these to me nor did she attend church, for she had no servant in those early days and did all the housework, including cooking our Sunday dinner. A great reader, always, Channing the Unitarian was in those days her special delight. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... stop, a troop of girl scouts was drilling when she stepped off the train. New clothes and a better appearance, the result of that first pay at housework, had converted the mill girl into quite an attractive young lady, and as she waited at the pretty little square, watching the girl scouts drill, ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her humble housework aroused in her regrets which were despairing, and distracted dreams. She thought of the silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, and of the two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... danger of forgetting this), that you are not domestics, and, while in an emergency I would have you shrink from nothing that needs doing, I do not think you should do any washing. Cooking you will very often have to do, but the ordinary housework does not come at all into your province. If your patient is a chronic invalid, I would have you make yourself useful in the house. Do the shopping, order the meals, anything that will show your patient ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... go in to tea with her, and, in the course of conversation with Stella, observed, 'If I may be allowed to make a suggestion, I should not get a servant at once; it will be amusing for a short time to do a little housework, and while everything is new and clean there will be no hard work to do. Besides, the Easter holidays are soon coming, and you want to go to the sea for a few days to bring the roses back to ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... sleep they could before dawn waked them to another day of toil. Thursday evening was set for the event. On Wednesday the Lusk girls coming in to discuss, found Judith with shining eyes and crimson cheeks, attacking the simple housework of the cabin. ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... successful young literary man had hired a buxom Dutch girl to do the housework. Several weeks passed and from seeing her master constantly about the house, the girl received ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... me have my way for an hour here, will you? I want you to go back to Lottie and do up the housework; I see your breakfast dishes are still unwashed. Leave me alone here and let me do as I like for ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... of co-operative work is so great, that among our women co-operators, there is a general desire to have it utilized to the utmost; especially in all kinds of housework. The introduction of such a wholesale system of house-cleaning, soon demands a better class of sweepers, to take the place of the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... to have soft, white and attractive hands, even though compelled to do housework. Every lady desires to have nice hands, and all may do so by following the directions of this book. The most coarse, rough, red hands will, by following this teaching, become beautifully delicate and white, and it causes very little ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... stopped her boat in its course she was at the Sasso Scritto: a favourite resting-place with her, where, on feast-days, when Joconda let her have liberty from housework and rush-plaiting and spinning of ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... her youth alone, and drew near to the confines of age, a childless woman. The tender ambitions that she had received at birth had been, by time and disappointment, diverted into a certain barren zeal of industry and fury of interference. She carried her thwarted ardours into housework, she washed floors with her empty heart. If she could not win the love of one with love, she must dominate all by her temper. Hasty, wordy, and wrathful, she had a drawn quarrel with most of her neighbours, and with the others not ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... years at eighteen shillings a week. Whenever I made a suggestion concerning the business he was careful to ridicule it. Whenever I tried to break away and start on my own, he prevented it. There were a thousand other things—ways in which he fettered me. My only sister he kept at home to do the housework. He forbade her to marry. She and I never had enough money to do anything, to go anywhere, or to buy anything. Now, to be quite frank, I longed for him to die so that I could get free. To me he was an ogre, a great merciless ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... only person to be considered? What do I care about any pleasure for myself? I'd be willing never to have a maid again; I don't mind doing the work. If we didn't have any children I'd be glad to do your father's cooking and the housework and the washing and ironing, too, for the rest of my life. I wouldn't care. I'm a poor cook and a poor housekeeper; I don't do anything well; but it would be good enough for just him and me. I wouldn't ever utter one ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... risen a little before the sun the next morning, for she was downstairs about five o'clock. So was Seth, for, through Lisbeth's obstinate refusal to have any woman-helper in the house, he had learned to make himself, as Adam said, "very handy in the housework," that he might save his mother from too great weariness; on which ground I hope you will not think him unmanly, any more than you can have thought the gallant Colonel Bath unmanly when he made the gruel for ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the table-d'hote dinner runs up to over twenty-two dollars apiece, so with my half of the rent—eighteen dollars—I'd have less than nothing left out of my salary to pay my share of the groceries for all the breakfasts and luncheons. You see you'd not only be doing all the housework and cooking, but you'd be paying more of the ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... busy, happy life, only I am, perhaps, working a little too hard. What with my scholars, the extra amount of housework Martha contrives to get out of me, the practicing I must keep up if I am to teach, and the many steps I have to take, I have not only no idle moments, but none too many for recreation. Ernest is so busy himself that ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... the house for her handled mop. She looked first in the parlor, and then in the front hall; but at last she found it in the wash-room. She was very sly about it, for she was not sure Ruthie would approve of this kind of housework. Then Charlie tugged out a pail of water, and dipped in the mop; and between them both they thrust it through the opening of the pen, upon piggy's back. But the dirty creature did not love clean water. When he felt the mop coming down, ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... relative to serve as a menial until the debt should be paid. The pawned persons "were treated as members of the creditor's family and never exposed to harsh usage." The effect of interference by the English was that the wives and daughters of the great men suddenly had to do all the housework. "Debtor and creditor lost confidence in each other."[701] "There is a detestable and actual slavery in these hills, which is now only carried on by independent tribes, beyond English jurisdiction. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... soap suds), so enthralled had she become with the summer plan. If her parents could be persuaded to allow her to stay in camp with the girls during the summer, why then surely she need not be bothered with having to take exercise and help with the housework, as her mother insisted, she could simply give up all her time to her drawing and painting. You see Eleanor, like a good many other girls, did not at once grasp the meaning of the Camp ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... we could, to bear a strand of grotesque beads, or a handful of brazen gauds, and traffic them for some sable maid with crisp locks, whom, uncoffling from the captive train beside the desert, we should make to do our general housework forever, through the right of lawful purchase. But we knew that this was impossible, and that if we desired colored help we must seek it at the intelligence office, which is in one of those streets chiefly inhabited by the orphaned children ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... not so strong as formerly, and of late the toil of the farm taxed her endurance. There was milking, sewing, the housework, and the care of the chickens; enough to keep ten pairs of hands busy, let alone one. Oh, Lucy should ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... when she came away no notion of improving her acquaintance with Miss Anastasia; but the supper, and the breakfast and the dinner of the next day, with all the nameless and almost numberless duties of housework that filled up the time between, wrought her to a very strong sense of the necessity of having some kind of "help" soon. Mrs. Rossitur wearied herself excessively with doing very little, and then looked ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... forenoon is long; it's ten to one that all the so-called morning work is over, and you have leisure for an hour's sewing or reading before it is time to start the dinner preparations. By two o'clock your housework is done, and you have the long afternoon for books, needlework, or drawing,—for perhaps there is among you one with a gift at her pencil. Perhaps one of you reads aloud while the others sew, and you manage in that way ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... The housework had coarsened the mother's hands. Her nose had lost its shape and her temples had fallen in. Constant stooping over the kitchen range had made her a little round-shouldered. Father and mother met only at meals and at night. They did not ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... ago I was so run down that I could not spank the baby. After taking three bottles of your Elegant Elixir I am now able to thrash my husband in addition to my other housework. God bless you!" ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... taken the cottage a mile outside the sleepy little town. He had gone there in the first place because it was far removed from everyone and everything he knew, and in some ways the experiment had proved a success. The deaf old woman who came in to do his cooking and housework worried him little, and apparently did not gossip about his actions or his habits; whilst the three rooms he had furnished were more ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... to thinkin' of her; in my great affliction she Was sich a comfert to us, and so kind and neighberly,— She'd come, and leave her housework, fer to he'p out little Jane, And talk of her own mother 'at she'd never see again— Maybe sometimes cry together—though, fer the most part she Would have the child so riconciled and happy-like 'at we Felt lonesomer 'n ever when she'd put ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... could make it. The carpet was as crumbless and lintless as if meals were never taken there, nor work seen; and yet a little table ready set for dinner forbade the one conclusion, and a huge basket of naperies in one corner showed that Miss Janet's industry did not spend itself in housework alone. Before the fire stood a pretty good-sized kettle, and a very appetizing smell came from it to Ellen's nose. In spite of sorrow and anxiety, her ride had made her hungry. It was not without pleasure that she saw her kind hostess arm herself with a deep plate and a tin dipper, and carefully ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the following days; her talks, her manners, everything changed. She took interest in the housework, went to church regularly, and looked after ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... tale, which she translated. I told her how I had left my own country, intent on extending my knowledge and gaining my bread; how I was ready to turn my hand to any useful thing, provided it was not wrong or degrading: how I would be a child's nurse or a lady's-maid, and would not refuse even housework adapted to my strength. Madame heard this; and questioning her countenance, I almost thought the tale won ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... not be best for me to have a woman in the house with Zoe? Mrs. Engle knew of a widow about fifty whose husband had been killed in the War of 1812. And I got her, a Mrs. Brown. Zoe was now free of the housework. She had a companion when I was away on my work about the farm. And I felt relieved. But my mind and heart were full of problems. There was always Zoe! There was always Lamborn, skulking in the shadows of my speculations. How would I unravel this ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... Amelia finished her housework by nine o'clock, and then sat down in her low rocker by the south window, sewing in thrifty haste. The sun fell hotly through the panes, and when she looked up, the glare met her eyes. She seemed to be sitting in a golden shower, and she liked ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... stools, knitted stockings, or drank out of glasses handed across the shoulder to them by their lords. Some of these women were clearly notable housewives, and I have no reason to suppose that they do not take their full share of the housework. Boys and girls came in and out, and got a portion of the dinner to consume where they thought best. Children went tottering about upon the red-brick floor, the playthings of those hulking fellows, who handled ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... of hers, which probably represented a good deal of looking into windows and pricing; and her gown of the cheapest material, drooping from her round shoulders, is the product of the poor dress-making skill of hands which show only too well who does all the housework at home. The children, a boy of four and a girl of seven, are in their best, too, with faces scrubbed till ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... that Nancy Ellen never knew: it was time for Kate to be starting away to school. Because it was so self-evident that she should have what the others had had, she said nothing about it until the time came; then she found her father determined that she should remain at home to do the housework, for no compensation other than her board and such clothes as she always had worn, her mother wholly in accord with him, and marvel of all, Nancy Ellen quite enthusiastic ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... that out," said Louis, indicating the tray which Rachel had drawn from concealment under the Chesterfield, and which was now loaded. Mrs. Maldon employed an old and valued charwoman in the mornings. Rachel accomplished all the rest of the housework herself, including cookery, and she accomplished it with the stylistic smartness of a ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... a stranger come in and do my housework," he objected. "I can't, you know, though I appreciate your kindness all ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was born in Centerville. New York, in 1835 and began writing verse at the age of seventeen. Much as she has written, yet writing was only a pastime. She never let it interfere with her housework. Thoroughly practical, she did all her own work, just because she loved to do it. Her flowers of which she had many, in doors and out, resulted in many noble, inspiring ...
— Kansas Women in Literature • Nettie Garmer Barker
... realised what people would say. But I knew that would be silly. People can't run away and leave notes behind. But I can tell Anne I want to go to New York and get pupils. And I could get them. I can do housework, too." ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... revolution, your Majesty as you ought to know very well," replied the man; "and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. I'm glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Pennycuick name. The old maid, for her part, was enthusiastically devoted to the new sister-in-law, whom it was her joy to pet and coddle. "I can be of use to her," she tremblingly commended herself to her brother. "I can take the drudgery of the housework off her, and save her in the parish." "Well, perhaps so," said Mr Goldsworthy. And, sincerely desiring to endear himself to his aristocratic wife, he consented ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Mrs. Gulick have here a boarding-school for native girls. They had nine pupils of various shades and sizes. Some of them seemed very bright and intelligent, and were quick and handy about their work. Beside their studies, they are beginning to learn to make their own clothes and to do housework. ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... back at midnight to lie down and catch what sleep they could before dawn waked them to another day of toil. Thursday evening was set for the event. On Wednesday the Lusk girls coming in to discuss, found Judith with shining eyes and crimson cheeks, attacking the simple housework of ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... This is why it is your duty, when you leave, not to allow yourself to be idle: not only because God expects you to bring your sheaves with you at the Last Day, but because your field cannot stand empty—if good grain is not there, weeds will be. And manual work—gardening or housework—gives more fresh air to the mind than anything else. If you ever, as Punch expresses it, "find your doll stuffed with sawdust," if life seems a disappointment, and you are a prey to foolish fancies, and have lost your spring, then try being really tired out in body ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... Prince Albert painted, sang, and read together. Those were happy days indeed for the young rulers of a kingdom. Each of their children had a garden. The Prince of Wales worked in a carpenter's shop, and the royal princesses learned housework in a kitchen and dairy prepared for them." This was a revelation to Lucille, who had been reared with little or nothing ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... do as they like, and indulge their individuality, but every true and womanly woman must take to the nutmeg grater and the O-Cedar Mop. It is also believed that in the good old days before woman suffrage was discussed, and when woman's clubs were unheard of, that all women adored housework, and simply pined for Monday morning to come to get at the weekly wash; that women cleaned house with rapture and cooked joyously. Yet there is a story told of one of the women of the old days, who arose at four o'clock in ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... he answered. "Mary is always busy with her housework and her flowers and the poor sick folks she's always a-looking after—just like her mother, if you remember. Charlie, he's working late to-day—some breakdown or something that's keeping him overtime. That brother of yours is a fine manager, Miss Helen, and," he added, with a faint ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... to quiver in that manner, Baron always insisted that they all rest. During such recesses they ate, played cards and helped June with the housework. The younger man was continually amazed by the calmness with which the girl faced their desperate situation. Clad in a blue smock which brought out the color of her eyes, she flitted about the apartment, manufacturing delicious meals out of canned ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West
... of New York, ss.—Mary Conway, being duly sworn, doth depose and say: I have lived with Mr. and Mrs. Haggerty, in the County Court-House, for over fourteen months, as cook; for about three or four months I did general housework; on Sunday morning, September 10th, I got out of bed with the child that slept with me, wanting to get up; I don't know whether it was half-past six or seven o'clock; Mrs. Haggerty came into the room in her night-dress; and said to me, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... be more and more difficult to induce girls to learn or practice housework. For the average woman this is still necessary, and the more advanced schools have taken it up. For the girl whom neither the home nor the school has been able to reach, Scouting offers a most successful and attractive ...
— The Girl Scouts Their History and Practice • Anonymous
... to school in order to take the results of their work home for the family meal, if a school lunch is not served or if they do not need a lunch. Give careful directions for washing the dishes and supervise the housework carefully. (See pages 52, 53, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... inkstand, locked her bookcase, and went at housework as if it were a five-barred gate; of course she missed the leap, but scrambled bravely through, and appeared much sobered by the exercise. Sally had departed to sit under a vine and fig-tree of her own, so Di ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... there being any disgrace connected with work of any sort—it never entered my head. From a child I had been taught that work was honorable, and especially for a woman housework and cooking were respectable and healthy service. So I had no pride whatever in the matter; it was only a question of finding the work, and I did not doubt my ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... of work is not so complete, for housework can be neglected, there are always neighbours and friends to listen to tales of woe and thus generate a very harmful self-pity, and women are not content to enumerate their woes, but demand the attention and ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... houses where he went to stay. By strict economy, however, Mrs Shepherd managed to make two ends meet. Except when she was too ill and had to call in a charwoman to help her with the heaviest part of the work, she undertook the entire housework herself: when times were hardest, she had even taken in a lodger, not thinking herself above cooking and taking up his dinner. She had noticed that her economies endeared her to the Major, and it was pleasant to please him. Hers ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... planting, reaping. In the afternoons he painted—painted until the sun got too low to afford the necessary light; then he went for his daily solitary walk through the woods and fields, coming back at dark. After supper he helped his wife with the housework, put the children to bed, and then sat and read ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... inconceivably quick, deft, and clean. One good man will do the work of two white servants, and do it better. Toy takes care of us absolutely. He cooks, serves, does the housework, and with it all manages to get off the latter part of the afternoon and nearly every evening. At first, with recollections of the rigidly defined "days off" of the East, I was a little inclined to look into this. I did look into it; but when I found all ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... to get relief from everything that tries you, as far as you can. Treat yourself like an invalid, as you are. Then change your way of life entirely: go out a good deal in the air, read, and talk, and sing, and play on the piano—you used to be a good player, I remember. Let the housework and the sewing be done by somebody else, except what you can do without a strain upon yourself. Then I should be a little careful about my dress, to have it becoming and all that, and I would invite in a little company once in a while, and go out in a sociable way a little, and try to ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... which,—unaltered since the days of its original building,— was vaulted high and heavily timbered, she went first into the kitchen to see Priscilla, who, assisted by a couple of strong rosy-cheeked girls, did all the housework and cooking of the farm. She found that personage rolling out pastry and ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... in primitive farce. Lawyer Pathelin tells his client of a trick to outwit the magistrate; the client employs the self-same trick to avoid paying the lawyer. A termagant of a wife insists upon her husband doing all the housework; she has put down each separate item on a "rota." Now let her fall into a copper, her husband will refuse to drag her out, for "that is not down on his 'rota.'" In modern literature we meet with hundreds ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... have any housework to do in the morning," Ma Briskow confessed, as they left the Ajax. "A hotel would spoil me ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... a very busy and quiet one for the four years following the May day when she made her choice. Study, exercise, housework, and many wholesome pleasures kept her a happy, hearty creature, yearly growing in womanly graces, yet always preserving the innocent freshness girls lose so soon when too early set upon the world's stage and given ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... messages, Tommy. It would be a great advantage to me to have someone I could send on a message without feeling I was interfering with the housework." ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... Say occasionally, but only between the periods of the attacks of fever. On such visits she would assist the patient, do the housework, and arrange the hides or covers for her. Say harboured a wish to consult her about her disease; but Shotaye studiously avoided any opportunity for confidential talk. One day, however, when the two were alone in the kitchen, and the invalid felt somewhat ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... not so fast! In a month or two, perhaps. But first must come other things outdoor things. Also housework." ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the sleek respectability of the well-to-do quarter. In those windows Ruth observed foreign-looking, idle women, not very clean, who had nothing to do after they had completed half an hour of slovenly housework in the morning. They watched their neighbors breathlessly. They peered out with the petty virulent curiosity of the workless at whatever passed in the streets below them. Fifty times a day they could be seen to lean far out on their fire-escapes ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... son. Plainly we have here no second husband; plainly we have the tolerated lover. Only, in the Marquesas, instead of carrying his lady's fan and mantle, he must turn his hand to do the husband's housework. ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a sigh; "now I will dry the dishes for you.... You didn't mention the fact, when you engaged me, that I was also expected to do general housework." ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... brother and sister. Edward Chapin was a man of twenty-six, with an old, wasted face,—and he was still going to school, studying for the ministry. His sister Annabelle kept house for him; that is to say, she did whatever housework was done. The brother supported himself and his sister by getting odd jobs from churches and religious societies; he "supplied" the pulpit when a minister was ill, did secretarial work for the college and the Young Men's Christian Association. Claude's ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... below and above, they only succeeded in unearthing Hippolyte. He came up from his bed looking just like that very clever Missing Link that was at Barnum's, do you remember?—the one that sometimes was an Irishwoman, and could do housework in a cage by itself. I don't know exactly what Hippolyte had on, but it ended up with a petticoat of red and black plaid, and a pair of grey linen trousers over his shoulders; his whiskers and hair were standing straight on end, and his shaved ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... seemed to see the factory of Spencer & Son. The long lines of men had vanished, and in their places were women, clear-eyed, dexterous and happy at escaping from the unpaid drudgery of housework. "It may come to that, too," she thought, ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... being out of the house except at meal time, there was to a certain degree, a cessation of hostilities. Nora gradually acquired some knowledge of housework. She learned to cook fairly well and always helped with the washing, rarely complaining of her aching arms and back. The only indication she had that she was making progress was that Gertie complained less. Praise, of course, ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... came with eyes dancing—it was to be an especial day—a fete—and the gods had smiled on her planning and given them perfect weather. Never such sunshine, such crystal air, such high-hung clouds! Breakfast over, they hurried about the miniature housework, and packed the kit for a long day's tramp. Then they started forth, the cat following, tail aloft. Beyond a dim peak, where the clove opens southward, by the side of a tiny lake they lunched and took their noonday rest. She watched the smoke curl up from ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... "I ought to go, for the children's sake, if not for hers. Think of Cecie and the poor baby; and Lilian not ten years old, trying to do the housework! I can do so much ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... done, dried and replaced, she retired to her bedroom and turned her attention to her hands and nails, minutely solicitous, always in dread of the effects of housework. ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... have left quite a blank in their lives, although they had often pretended to themselves and to each other that they hated housework. But now that Mother had no writing and no housework to do, she had time for lessons. And lessons the children had to do. However nice the person who is teaching you may be, lessons are lessons all the world over, and ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... am a reader of YOUNG PEOPLE, and like it very much. I am thirteen years old. My father is Register of Deeds for Coos County, and I help him. I can record ten deeds in a day. And I can cook and do all kinds of housework. ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Italian and Tasso, I am ashamed to tell you how slow I have been. Between company and housework and sewing I have my hands about full, and precious little time for reading and study. Still, I feel that I live a life of too much ease. I should love to spend the rest of my existence in the actual service of the Lord, without a question ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... said; but it was a dreadful thing for a woman to lose her liberty, especially when liberty brought so much idle time. "Why, girls, I have quilted and darned up every rag in the house. He will do half the housework himself; he is an everlasting Betty." She was cheerful, however, and helped Hepsey, as well as the rest ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... approached by a man who speaks her language and is immediately offered employment at good wages, with all expenses to the destination to be paid by the man. Most frequently laundry work is the bait held out, sometimes housework or employment in a candy shop ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... eddicated and learn seamstress; kase we doesn't want her to work lak we is," says the farmer. "I wish to help you plant this new industry, broom-making," writes Miss Susan B. Anthony, "because you are trying so earnestly to teach your girls other means of livelihood besides sewing, housework, and cooking." This is the problem we have been trying to solve at Tuskegee for over twenty years: What handiwork can we give our girls with their academic training that will better fit them to meet the demand for skilled teachers ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... then these squaws go to cookin' whenever they happen to think about it. Lord, but I'm hungry! Wish some good-lookin' squaw would get took with me and follow me off, for I sure hates cookin' and housework." ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... did not. Susanna had been hired to do the waiting and the dish-washing during Campbell's brief visit. It was I who hired her. If I had had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in the household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea. "Pity if I can't do housework for two folks," she declared. "I don't care if you can afford it. Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is a sinful extravagance." As Susanna's services had been already engaged for the weekend she ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a sudden spirit of rebellion. Why shouldn't she have some fun? She would enjoy herself! She wasn't going to go on like this, letting people in to the promenade, doing housework, practising typewriting. Why did some girls get everything, like Laura Temple, and others nothing? It was not fair. It ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... until the thrifty sempstress was counted well to do, and held in esteem according. Sometimes, when she got weary, and thought a change of labor would do her good, she would engage with some lucky dame to help do housework for a month or two. She was a famous hand at pickling, preserving, and making all manner of toothsome knick-knacks and dainties. Nor was she deficient in the pleasure walks of the culinary art. Betsey Pratt, the tavernkeeper's wife, a special crony of Statira's, used always to send for her whenever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... even mentioned. The efficient kitchen devised in such an interesting and clever way has no place in it. Its exclusive object is to suggest a satisfactory and workable solution along modern lines of how to get one's housework efficiently performed without ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... was makin' me? I'm paid to do the cookin' and housework in this house, and if I see fit to light in and boss things 'round a bit, it's my own business. Thank the Lord, I got manners enough to attend to it! How much coffee did you come over here ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have you pleasure from poems? Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a nomination and election? or with your wife and family? Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful maternal cares? These also flow onward to others—you and I fly onward, But in due time you and I shall take less interest ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... about it. The great sorrow has come upon you, and there's only one comfort—there are others. It falls upon all who try to get out of doing their own housework in New York. And I'll bet you were good enough to the last cook, too—only asked her for one night out a week, came to her meals promptly, didn't demand more than a fair living wage, and let her have the rest. Yes, of course you did. And you're going to let the next one have the best room ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... contrast to the women who tried to restrain her. They tried once or twice to thrust her back through the curtain, although clearly determined to do her no injury; but she held her ground easily. At a rough guess it was tennis and boating that had done more for her muscles than ever strenuous housework did for the Armenians. ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... for silver and tin. Or maybe you're dealing in unguents healing, or dye for the whiskers, or salve for the corns, or something that quickens egg-laying in chickens, or knobs for the cattle to wear on their horns. It's no use your talking, you'd better be walking, and let me go on with my housework, I think; you look dissipated, if truth must be stated, and if you had money you'd spend ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... Graham!" said my neighbour Mrs. Jones to me one day, "what shall I do for good help? I am almost worried out of my senses. I wish somebody would invent a machine to cook, wash, scrub, and do housework in general. What a blessing it would be! As for the whole tribe of flesh and blood domestics, they are not worth ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... sez, "No, Josiah, I can't go into that with all the rest I have to do, and it seems onreasonable in that minister to want wimmen to climb up onto pedestals when they have to do their own housework." ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... Old Tarwater was up and limping about the housework of the cabin, cooking and dish-washing for the five men of the creek. Genuine sourdoughs (pioneers) they were, tough and hard-bitten, who had been buried so deeply inside the Circle that they did not know there was a Klondike Strike. ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... gardening, the cooking, the housework, the clerical work—you don't do the laundry, too, do you?" ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... the rocky farm that the father and mother looked about them to see how they could add to it. Miranda Conwell turned to her needle and often sewed far into the night, making coats, neckties, any work she could obtain that would bring in a few dollars. She was never idle. The moment her housework was done, her needle was flying, and Russell had ever before him the picture of his patient mother, working, ever working, for the family good. The only time her hands rested was when she read her children ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... fact, where they could find any Bell-person kind enough to give them board and lodging. And every one was surprised at the increased loudness in the voices of these hospitable bells. For, of course, the Bell-people from the belfry did their best to help in the housework as polite guests should, and always added their voices to those of their hosts on all occasions when bell-talk was called for. And the seven big beautiful bells in the belfry were left hollow and dark and quite empty, except for the clappers who did not ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... I was a regular young rake before I was sent up to London to be Praddy's pupil. Apparently I seduced the housemaid or kitchenmaid—my father's establishment seems to consist of Nannie who is housekeeper and cook, and a maid who does housework and helps in the kitchen—and this unfortunate girl who fell a prey to my solicitations—or more likely misled me—afterwards gave birth to a child attributed either to my fatherhood or the gardener's. But the matter has been hushed up by a payment of twenty pounds ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... when Mrs. Mesurier was enjoying a little doze on the parlour sofa, and her three elder daughters were snatching an hour or two from housework—they had already left school—for a little private reading, the drowsy house would suddenly be awakened by one loud wooden ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... thus becomes an illegitimate wife who may separate from him when it pleases her. Some women contract this kind of union without being actually paid, simply for their maintenance, in return for which they do the housework. Here there is no actual sale of the body. The contract may be indefinite or limited. In such cases the effect of money on the attitude of the man toward his mistress is evident; his tone is generally less respectful toward paid mistresses than toward those ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... say that they shall stay. You say that in that case you'll go, which you do, having previously dismissed Dot and Dash. In consequence, everybody in this neighborhood cuts me, I am turned out of my business, and as the dates agree, I am believed to be the father of the child. Effie has the housework to do as well as the baby to look after, and in consequence, I am horribly neglected. The handle of the front door is not polished, and when an old friend comes down from London to see me, I have nothing to give him for ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... things inanimate still partook of men's dread at men's deeds. If you passed through the corridor and saw in the shadow of the wall that homeliest of instruments cast away and forgotten, you would smile at the slatternly housework. But if you knew that a corpse had been borne down those stairs to the left,—borne along those floors to that marriage-bed,—with the blood oozing and gushing and plashing below as the bearers passed with their burden, then straight that dead thing ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... help to us, Edgar; we told you so the other night. We could n't have Yung Lee unless you lived with us, and I could n't earn any money if I had to do all the housework." ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... means of a normal-school training or through familiarity with, and participation in, the domestic labor of a well-organized household. The working girl in a great city like New York does not have the advantage of either form of training. Her education, even at the best, is meager, and of housework she knows less than nothing. If she is city-born, it is safe to assume that she has never been taught how to sweep a room properly, nor how to cook the simplest meal wholesomely, nor how to make a garment that she would be willing to wear. She usually buys all her cheap ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... rank, conversed in pure Latin, and could even read and write. Aemilia, too, had become a great favourite in the house. The farmer's wife wondered at seeing one, with two slaves to wait upon her, active and busy, interested in all that went on, and eager to learn every detail of the housework. ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... a-trackin' up my floors," she said, "and a-askin' why you don' stop de circus from a-showin' nex' to de church and den a-cranin' afar necks out de winder, till I can't get no housework done." ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... herself, Catie's mother explained contentedly to her new neighbours, and she knew enough to come home, when she was hungry. Best let her go her ways, then. She would learn to be a little woman, all the sooner; and, in the meantime, it was a great deal easier to do the housework without having a child ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... just warrant," the man went on, "that I've had more time to myself lately than you have, for all I've my living to earn as well as the housework." ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... both of them letting on to dust around in here—but that's because there's something they want to hear about and mix their gabble into. And they're always around at meals, for the same reason. But the fact is, we have to keep a young negro girl just to take care of them, and a negro woman to do the housework and help ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... new and sudden affection for housework, insisted on getting the supper. Mrs. Nelson, of course, could not consent to it on this the night of her banker's return; nobody's hands but her own must lay the cloth and mix the salad. But Lou was strangely insistent, and the upshot of the ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... wife—her maiden name was Harmony Vickers—was doing her part in that little brick house which the Colonel had taken Lane to see. There she worked and saved, treating her husband's money like a sacred fund to be treasured. When the colonel came home from his weekly trips, he helped in the housework, and nursed the boy through the croup at night, saving his wife where he could. It was long after success had begun to look their way before Mrs. Price would consent to move into the wooden cottage on a quiet cross street that the Colonel wanted to buy, or employ more than one servant. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... black nodded slowly, "Mr. John, she born mistress and I born slave; she can't help it—and they was good people too—all the people that owned me. They liked me too. I didn't have to work except holdin' horses and trainin' colts—and housework. They was always ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... you don't know how happy I am—not being away from those I love, but things are so different. I get up early and after breakfast I help Aunt Susan with the housework, for her maid is too old to go up and down stairs. I have learned to churn—to make butter and pot cheese as well. I dust, make my bed, and sweep my room. (Don't let mother see this. She may consider that I ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... can't help it." She was winking hard again against two fresh tears. "I spoiled two cakes this afternoon. Elice tried to show me how to make them; and I burned my finger"—she held up a swaddled member for inspection—"horribly. I just can't do this housework, Harry, just simply can't." ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... place. His lordship was described as being in delicate health. He lived in the strictest retirement—nobody was admitted to him, not even his own countrymen. A stupid old woman was discovered who did the housework at the palace, arriving in the morning and going away again at night. She had never seen the lost courier—she had never even seen Lord Montbarry, who was then confined to his room. Her ladyship, 'a most gracious and adorable ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
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