"Calico" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... white maiden with a heritage of bath-tubs. Spotlessly white were her buckskin moccasins and leggings, which encased a pair of tiny feet and then wound round and round her sturdy legs until they looked as shapeless as telegraph posts. Her scant, red calico skirt met her leggings at the knee; and her red mantle, of Navajo weave, fell back from her head, but wrapped closely her waist and arms, and then dropped long ends down the front of her dress. Her coal-black hair, heavy and shining, was combed smoothly back from her ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... Mere calico served her for satin; My broadcloth was made of blue jeans. Without crest or a motto in Latin, Meg's style was as grand as ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... you," cried Lanigan, springing to his feet, and throwing the end of his cigar out of the window; "but I say, Calthy, have you any of that fire-blaze calico with the rocket sparks that's been on hand ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... flat, we had the Kuldo (a swift and powerful river) to cross, but we found an old Indian and a girl camped on the opposite side waiting for us. The daughter, a comely child about sixteen years of age, wore a calico dress and "store" shoes. She was a self-contained little creature, and clearly in command of the boat, and very efficient. It was no child's play to put the light canoe across such a stream, but the old man, with much shouting and under command of the girl, ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... Why, none of our quickest steam-pinnaces can overhaul them when they're going on a wind, for even with the lightest breeze their sails, being made of twilled calico and light, waft them along as if by magic. There are twenty that escape us for every one we catch, as, in the busy season, the caravans from the interior bring the slaves down to the coast wholesale. The Portuguese and Arabs are the chaps that manage the business; and ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... temperament! His "boughten" sack coat, fitting him all over, similar to a wet shirt on a broom-handle, was pouched out at the pockets with any quantity of numerous articles, in the way of books and boots, pamphlets and perfumery, knick-knacks and gim-cracks, calico, candy, &c. His vest was short, but that deficiency was made up in superfluity of dickey, and a profusion of sorrel whiskers. Having got into the store, he very leisurely walked around, viewing the hardware, separately and minutely, until one ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... afternoon appointed the play had been well learned by the four actors. Everything being ready, this cosy little sitting-room was now shut off from view by a calico curtain which was stretched across the stage by long strings ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... the Canada Line, playing with his Yard-stick, and perhaps about to take the measure of an unmade piece of calico; when Mabel, with a wild cry of joy, sprang from a small boat to his side. The meeting was too much. They divided a good square faint between them this time. At last Philander found his utterance, and said, "Do they think of me at Home, do they ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... his limbs, while strained to their utmost energy, suddenly failed beneath him. A rifle-shot had struck him in the vertebra of the neck, causing instantaneous death. Meanwhile, King Ben Cracko had made a bolt to escape, but was seized by his long calico robe; which, however, gave way, leaving him literally naked in the midst of his enemies. A shot brought him to the ground; but he sprang to his feet, still struggling to escape. He next received two bayonet wounds, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... that the bullocks at Ambong were remarkably fine and the price of them ridiculously cheap. Two of the largest were to be purchased for about twenty-five shillings worth of calico or any other European manufacture. Wherever we went on this island, and I may say over the Indian archipelago generally, the spirit of trade and barter appeared to be universal; and if the inhabitants of Borneo were inclined to look into ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... three and a-half deep. A case, to admit of tapes, is to be made one nail from the top, and the bottom of each flounce is to have a thick cord hemmed into it. When worn, the article is turned inside out. The materials are strong jean, or calico. ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... girls must meet as often as we can, during the coming week, to make aprons and neckties out of print. Only one apron and one necktie is to be alike, and Walt Haley and Mr. Dilloway are going to give us as much calico as we need." ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis
... of a figure hurrying toward him with a lighted candle, and, as it approached, he was perfectly astounded to see that it was Sham-Sham himself, dressed up in a neat calico frock and a dimity apron, like a house-keeper, and with a bunch of keys ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... will occur at noon,' says Lizzie. 'There'll be nothing but simple morning frocks. The girls can wear calico if they wish. No jewels, no ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... measures of the Berlin bushel, which he had sent all over the country (at the expense of his subjects) should be preserved and kept locked up so as to get no dents. In order to foster the linen and woolen industry, he decreed that his subjects should wear none of the fashionable chintz and calico, and threatened with a hundred thalers' fine and three days in the pillory everybody who, after eight months, permitted a shred of calico in his house in dress, gown, cap, or furniture coverings. This method of ruling ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... stretching long shoots over the brown stone and the iron balconies. There is a smell of violets and flowers in the warm air, and down on the little pond the swan- shaped boats are paddling about with their cargoes of merry children and calico nursery-maids, while the Irish boys look on from the banks and throw pebbles when the policemen are not looking, wishing they had the spare coin necessary to embark for a ten minutes' voyage on the mimic sea. Unfamiliar figures wander through the streets ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... first white man they ever saw wore a spotted-calico shirt—which to them appeared like the small-pox—and a great white comforter. They thought the spotted shirt was the Great Manitou himself, the master of the alarming disease that swept them off in such vast numbers, and that the white comforter was the Manitou of the snow; that, ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... ten yards of calico, a pot of red wagon paint, and a pretty gal and make a show to fill any theater on Broadway for six months—if I'm let alone," answered Mr. Rooney, with the assurance that moves mountains. "That Lindsey is one good actor with common horse-sense, and the little ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... a man; that is, a cloth coat, or rather shooting-jacket; but after that comes a long flowing skirt, which you certainly would not see on any man or boy at home. The Cingalese men bestow a good deal of attention on this skirt. Poorer people have it made in white or blue calico, but others use very handsome India stuffs, which must have cost ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... alone outside; she compromised matters by sitting down on the deck. Then she placed the small bundle beside her, and hurriedly took the rag-doll from her pocket, into which it was stuffed head down, pulled its calico skirt from over its head, propped it up against the coaming of the door, and told it not to ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... words were falling from my lips, we approached the end of our journey, the Roslin Inn house heaving in sight, at the door of which me and Peter louped out, an hostler with a yellow striped waistcoat, and white calico sleeves, I meantime holding the naig's head, in case it should spend off, and capsize the concern. After seeing the horse and gig put into the stable, Peter and I pulled up our shirt necks, and after looking at our watches, as if time was precious, oxtered away, arm-in-arm, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... range. Here we again camped to watch for pack trains. About ten o'clock next morning four drivers, mounted, came past our camp with a pack-mule train. As soon as they saw us they rode for their lives, leaving us the booty. This was a long train, and packed with blankets, calico, saddles, tinware, and loaf sugar. We hurried home as fast as we could with these provisions, and on our return while passing through a canon in the Santa Catilina range of mountains in Arizona, met a white man driving a mule pack train. When we first saw him he had already seen us, and was riding ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo
... set up an auction block before the door of the hotel and auction her off to the highest bidder, hadn't we?" suggested Helen, who had been rummaging in her bag. "Here, Bella! If you want a shirt-waist to take the place of that calico blouse you have on, here is one. One of mine. And I guarantee it will fit you better than Heavy's did. She ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... to the inquiry of S.W.P., in No. 23, for a waterproof paste. "Calico printers when they wish to leave white figures on a dark ground use what they term a 'resist paste' to cover such places as are designed to be unaffected by the dye. If the ingredients of this paste were known it might be what S.W.P., desires." This "resist ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... of tint, is free from greasy matter, and can therefore easily be ground into water, or into linseed oil without interfering with the drying properties of the latter. Acetylene black has also been tried in calico printing, and has given far better results in tone and strength than other blacks per unit weight of pigment. It may be added that the actual yield of pigment from creosote oils, the commonest raw material for the preparation ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... ago, lie on the shelf and laugh as I saw her stand by the half hour before the glass, giving an extra twist to her curl and an additional dash of white powder on her hair—now fretted because the powder was too thick, now fretted because it was too thin? She was as proud in cambric and calico and nankeen as Harriet is to-day in white tulle and organdy. I remember how careful she was when she ran me along the edges of the new dress. With me she clipped and notched and gored and trimmed, and day and night I went click! click! click! and it seemed as if she would never ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... pouch of nuggets, pouring them from hand to hand. A candle stuck in a bottle flickered beside them. They were honest, kindly faced miners, roughly dressed and heavily bearded, but it could be seen that they had hearts of gold. The beautiful young girl, who wore a simple dress of blue calico, and whose hair hung about her fair face in curls of a radiant buff, now served them food and poured steaming coffee from a ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... compliment rarely paid to a Freshman. As a preparatory initiation ordeal he had to parade the principal business streets of Kingsport for a whole day wearing a sunbonnet and a voluminous kitchen apron of gaudily flowered calico. This he did cheerfully, doffing his sunbonnet with courtly grace when he met ladies of his acquaintance. Charlie Sloane, who had not been asked to join the Lambs, told Anne he did not see how Blythe could do it, and HE, for his part, could ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... The pink calico morning dress went on without adventure. Then she carefully emptied the water from the wash-bowl into the jar, wiped it neatly and hung the towel to dry; straightened the photograph of her deceased father in its black-walnut frame; shook the feather bed and tightened a sagging ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... o'clock it was all done, and the table set for supper, and everything; so Polly got her needle and thread, and the pink calico she was making into an apron, and we went out through ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... The very first morning I was admitted behind the scenes. "If you want anything before breakfast," said one of the young ladies, as the evening circle was breaking up, "come down into the butler's room and get it." And to the butler's room I went; and there, in a calico fitted as neatly as the rich silk of the evening before, with no papers in her hair, with nothing but a richer glow to distinguish the morning from the evening face, with laughing eyes and busy hands, issuing orders and inspecting dishes, stood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... everything, but things individualized, easily distinguished, and a place to put them in. I've often thought that the habit of buying things wholesale—so many dolls, all exactly alike, so many yards of calico for dresses, all exactly alike, leads, in institutions like yours, to a vague conception of private property, and even of individuality itself. If some room could be allowed for free choice—the children be allowed to buy their own calicoes, within a given price, or to choose the trimmings ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... calico apron, linen collar. Afternoon dress: Some lighter print, muslin apron, linen collar and cuffs. Sundays: a neat alpaca dress, linen collar and cuffs, or frill tacked into the neck of the dress, a black apron, a black shawl, a medium ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... the cash-box in Mr Verloc's hand. But when she understood that her brother was "capering all over the place downstairs" she swung out in one sudden movement on to the edge of the bed. Her bare feet, as if poked through the bottom of an unadorned, sleeved calico sack buttoned tightly at neck and wrists, felt over the rug for the slippers while she looked upward ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... pretty children—a boy of twelve and a little girl of eight. The exquisite neatness of the room almost concealed its wretchedness: everything announced order and economy, but at the same time great poverty. A painted wooden bedstead, covered with coarse but clean calico sheets, blue calico curtains, four chairs, a straw arm-chair, a high desk of dark wood, with a few books and boxes placed on shelves, composed the entire furniture of the room. And yet the man who lay on that wretched bed, whose pallid cheek, and harsh, incessant ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... this that Martha Foote was a beaming, motherly person who called you dearie. Neither was she one of those managerial and magnificent blonde beings occasionally encountered in hotel corridors, engaged in addressing strident remarks to a damp and crawling huddle of calico that is doing something sloppy to the woodwork. Perhaps the shortest cut to Martha Foote's character is through Martha Foote's bedroom. (Twelfth floor. Turn to your left. That's it; 1246. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... named Lebolt, an' a boot-leggin' tree-spotter named Creed, that lives in Hilarity, an' a couple av worthless divils av sawyers that's too lazy fer honest wor-rk, but camps t'rough th' winter, trappin' an sawin' bird's-eye an calico ash ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... day she augmented her store, until she had two kittens, one little white pig with a curly tail, half a dozen soft piepies, one kid, and many inanimate articles, such as broken bottles, dishes, looking-glass and gay bits of calico. When the little thing became sleepy she would toddle through the long grass to a corner, whence the river could be heard fretting against its banks, and lie there: she said the water sang to her. Finding that this was her favorite spot, the old nurse placed there a bright quilt for her to rest on, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... "we have some hard work before us. Mining isn't like standing behind a counter, or measuring off calico. It takes ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... brought, in Confederate currency, $40 per barrel; calico, $30 per yard; coffee, $50 per pound; French gloves, $150 per pair; and black pepper, $300 per pound. Dried sage, raspberry, and other leaves were substituted for the costly tea. Woolen clothing was scarce and the army depended largely on captures of the ample Federal ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... his employer failed, and for some months Cobden had to take unwelcome holiday. In September he found a situation, and again set out on the road with his samples of muslin and calico prints. Two years afterwards, in 1828, he and two friends determined to begin business on their own account. They arranged with a firm of Manchester calico-printers to sell goods on commission; and so profitable was the enterprise that in 1831 the partners determined ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... however, was an uninvited guest, for just as Bab and Betty sat down on the porch steps, in their stiff pink calico frocks and white ruffled aprons, to repose a moment before the party came in, a rustling was heard among the lilacs and out stepped Alfred Tennyson Barlow, looking like a small Robin Hood, in a green blouse with a silver buckle on his broad belt, a feather in ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... of unpretentious Hindu temples, and the Maharaja is said to be quite punctilious in his observance of religious forms. He was absent from the city, but several brothers of his were seen driving, clad in long garments of gaudy-colored striped calico, and wearing small turbans; the dress of the women was also peculiar, the skirt being so full that as they walked they resembled balloons; they are noted for wearing a profusion of jewelry,—necklaces by the half-dozen, bracelets sometimes nearly to the elbow, anklets, heavy earrings, ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... You will, will you? Vamoose!" said Uncle Ike, as he turned the hose on the Indian with the lasso, and drove him behind the porch with water dripping down his calico shirt, taking the color out. Then an Indian near the gate began to fire blank cartridges with a toy pistol and Uncle Ike put his elbow up in front of his face, as he said afterward, to save his beauty, and Uncle Ike started toward that Indian, dragging the hose, and shouting, ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... all these fine things, I'd be as bad as yourself, Finny darling. No: I'll wear my calico gown, and my sun-bonnet, and my strong shoes; and you'll see I can get to my work or my play without half the bother you'd make in ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... and lonely, but soon found plenty of consolation in his new home. The name of his adopted father was "Keeps-the-Spotted-Ponies." He was known to have an unusual number of the pretty calico ponies; indeed, he had a passion for accumulating property in the shape of ponies, painted tents, decorated saddles and all sorts of finery. He had lost his only son; but the little pale-face became the adopted brother of two handsome young women, his daughters. This made him quite popular among ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... women were all colored people and, like the race the world over, were most fantastically and gaily clothed. The women wore bright-hued calico dresses, and brighter bandana handkerchiefs on their heads. The men wore flaming neckties, gay shirts, and, in some cases, tall white or ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... eight or ten easy words, that they might have some breathing-spell before being slaughtered, and then to give a poser or two which soon settled them. He let them run a little, as a cat does a doomed mouse. There was now but one person left on the opposite side, and, as she rose in her blue calico dress, Ralph recognized Hannah, the bound girl at old Jack Means's. She had not attended school in the district, and had never spelled in spelling-school before, and was chosen last as an uncertain quantity. The Squire began with easy words of two syllables, from that page of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... so busy thinking of you after I left your cute little country that I couldn't remember the name. I thought of 'calico' and 'Fedora' and 'Kokomo' and a lot of names that sounded like it, but I knew I was wrong. Kalora—Kalora—I'll remember that. I knew it began with a 'K.' But what in the name of all that is pure and sanctified are you doing in the ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... week she went to the village, this time putting on a dark delaine, instead of the snuff calico with a yellow flower. Somehow the gay dresses and curious glances did not disturb her as much as usual. A pleasant recognition was passed with a neighbor whom she had not spoken ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... seating myself on one of the slab benches near a box stove, which had but one length of pipe, out of which the smoke was pouring towards an opening in the roof, glancing around on the women in their sun bonnets, the babies in their little calico caps and the men in homespun, then out of the open door into a ravine where the tops of the tall trees were beneath us, I said to myself, I've reached "that beyond." The undefined has taken shape and I have reached the place of which I could ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 1, January, 1889 • Various
... were not such elegant affairs, though sometimes they were even more fun, like the Fergusons' calico ball, where I wore my grandmother's gingham, and prunella shoes; or the party the Sumner Light Guards gave, which was the prettiest of all on account of the young men's uniforms, and the way we sat around the little refreshment tables between dances with our mothers and our partners, ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... something to say or do, and even if the colonel was close by, he'd say or do it. Now, there happened to be an elephant walking along by our side, with the captain of our company, one of the lieutenants, and a couple of women in the howdah; while a black nigger fellow, in clean white calico clothes, and not much of 'em, and a muslin turban, and a good deal of it, was striddling on the creature's neck, rolling his eyes about, and flourishing an iron toasting-fork sort of thing, with which he drove the great flap-eared ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... under the columns of the front porch, a meagre little figure of a woman dressed with severe and immaculate cheapness in a purple calico wrapper, with a checked gingham apron tied in a prim bow at her back. Her hair was very smooth. She was New England austerity and conservatism embodied. She was terrifying, although it would have puzzled anybody to have told why. ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Rosenberg spoke, she pushed a waiter full of seeds under the stove as if she hated the very sight of them; and when she stood up again, Dotty observed that her dirty calico dress did not come anywhere near the ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... in a scarlet uniform, with epaulets and a sword. The other chiefs observed their native costume, which is, with this tribe, a toga of blue broadcloth, folded and held by one hand on the breast, over a light-figured calico shirt, red cloth leggins and beaded moccasons, a belt or baldric about the waist, sustaining a knife-sheath and pouch, and a frontlet of skin or something of the sort, around the forehead, environed ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... being accommodated in the other one, where we were very hospitably received by the senhora of the sitio, an old Indian woman, whose gold ornaments, necklace, and ear-rings were rather out of keeping with her calico skirt and cotton waist. This is, however, by no means an unusual combination here. Beside the old lady, the family consisted, at this moment, of her afilhada (god-daughter), with her little boy, and several other women employed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... goods upon oxen. The cattle, unused to such burdens, caused great delay by 'bucking' and wallowing in the snow. There was also much confusion as to what articles should be taken and what abandoned. One wanted a box of tobacco carried along; another, a bale of calico, and some thing and some another. But for this delay we would have passed the summit and pressed forward to California. Owing to my lameness, I was placed on horseback, and my foot was tied up to the saddle in a sort of sling. Near evening we were close to the top of the dividing ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... buckwheat cakes—when this maid came rushing into the dining-room and stood regarding them, speechless, with a countenance indicative of the utmost horror. She was deadly pale. Her hands, sodden with soapsuds, hung twitching at her sides in the folds of her calico gown; her very hair, which was light and sparse, seemed to bristle with fear. All the Townsends turned and looked at her. David and George rose with ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... the corner and peeped around, the intruding head was just leveled, and coming through, carefully followed by a nimble body, but not clothed in the habiliments usually donned by burglars; instead, there appeared a blue calico much drenched and ornamented with wet weeds, an apron wholly unrecognizable as to color or design, and a drabbled hat hanging to the intruder's neck. As this queer apparition landed on the floor, Mrs. Bering stepped around the corner, ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... Emily Ruggles's. It was full of marbles, tops, 'scholars' companions,' air-guns, sheets of paper soldiers, valentines, fire-crackers before the Fourth, elastic for slingshots, spools, needles and yards of blue calico with white dots, which hung over strings above the counters. Emily was a dark, heavy-browed spinster with a booming bass voice and a stern manner, and when you crept, awed and timid, into the store she glared at you and boomed out, 'Which side, young man?' Yet her store was a kid's paradise. ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... of Morlaix are also partial to the tight-fitting coiffe. This consists of five broad folds, forming a base from which a fan-like fall of stiffened calico spreads out from ear to ear, completely shading the nape of the neck and reaching down the back below the shoulders. Many of the women wear calico tippets, while the more elderly affect a sort of mob-cap with turned-up edges, from which to the middle of the head are stretched two wide ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... chains. The travellers took compassion on him, and released him from bondage. His chains were struck off with a hammer, and, once on his feet, a freedman, he seemed scarcely to believe the fact; when, however, attired in a clean calico shirt, he strutted about and soon came to make his new master his best bow. On his body were numerous spear-wounds. He had been captured by the Watuta, who had cut off several of his toes. This man never deserted them during ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... picture right, As we have often seen it In early morning's light; The yellow mounds of mullock With spots of red and white, The scattered quartz that glistened Like diamonds in light; The azure line of ridges, The bush of darkest green, The little homes of calico ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... inherited antipathy to Republics, they believe in sober earnest what one of their greatest wits said jocosely, that "the great object for which the Anglo-Saxon race appears to have been created is the making of calico." And whatever interferes, or threatens to interfere, with this ennobling occupation is sure to incur their passive displeasure, if not their active hostility. We expect nothing, therefore, from their good-will; but we have a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... fitted, a pair of felt slippers was brought and added to the collection; then sundry yards of calico and flannel, and brown holland, some stockings, and what Jessie thought the most wonderful of all, a pair of cotton gloves and some little ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... have been a week later that Jeremiah burst into his wife's room. Hester sat by the window, bending over numberless scraps of blue, red, and pink calico. ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... honey and had a time getting out the honey, with all the crowd assisting. Then again it was good for sore eyes to loaf around in a farmer's front yard and his door steps and see his wife and daughters flitting about, and every now and then get to talk to them a little. Calico dresses and sun bonnets perhaps, but they were a treat to the soldiers, who were tired of seeing nothing but men for so long. The detail put off having to pass the front of that battery so long as they could and had their frolic out. But they had to pass that point in daylight, ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... handkerchief to the Hungarian, asking him if it was burnt. "I see no burn upon it," said the Hungarian; "but in the name of Gott, how could you set it on fire without burning it?" "I never set it on fire at all," said the jockey; "I set this on fire," showing us a piece of half-burnt calico. "I placed this calico above it, and lighted not the handkerchief, but the rag. Now I will show you something else. I have a magic shilling in my pocket, which I can make run up along my arm. But, first of all, I would gladly know whether ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... scarlet cloth, were just and tapering, even to the nicest proportions of classic beauty; and never did foot of higher instep, and softer roundness, grace a feathered moccason. Though the person, from the neck to the knees, was hid by a tightly-fitting vest of calico and the short kirtle named, enough of the shape was visible to betray outlines that had never been injured, either by the mistaken devices of art or by the baneful effects of toil. The skin was only visible at the hands, face, and neck. Its lustre having been a little dimmed by exposure, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... garments, and without a coat; his common calico shirt, yellow and in rags; his hair hanging over his face; his features changed with suffering, and pinched with famine—there sat Mr. Alfred Jingle; his head resting on his hands, his eyes fixed upon the fire, and his whole appearance ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... about eight good, strong calico rompers," she began authoritatively. Then suddenly she interrupted herself. "Say, why don't you come over to the hotel with me now," she suggested enthusiastically. "I'm just finishing my wash, and while I wrench out the last few things you can feed the baby; than ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... woman, in a faded calico dress with a thin shawl over her shoulders, descended the steps that led into the saloon, and walked up ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... carnation in her wash frock—February though it was—to Rachel Redding in dark blue and white, and smiled mischievously. "Mrs. Robeson—and Miss Redding—you are challenged," he announced. "Here's a fine old chump who has an awful suspicion that maybe when there are no guests you come down in calico wrappers with day-before-yesterday's ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... voice, but from her eyes there rolled, steadily, the biggest, roundest tears I ever saw. They ran down her cheeks, formed a stream in the first groove of her double chin, overflowed it, and dripped drop, drop, a drop at a time, on the breast of her stiffly starched calico dress, and from there ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... shingle on the edge of the porch and hung there. I couldn't get it back and Taylor couldn't get it down, and, seeing it was necessary for something to be done, I pushed aside the curtains (they were made of striped calico, blue and white) and told the girls I was going to lean out of the window on the roof of the porch to get the string loose, and they must hold on to my feet, for the roof sloped and I might slip if they didn't. They tried to stop me, and Amy wrung her hands, being very nervous from ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... stores it up under his capacious tail for future personal use; the Malay steals it again from the thief for his own purposes; and ten to one the Dutch or English merchant beguiles it from him with sized calico or poisoned rum, and transmits it to Europe, where it serves to lighten our nights and assist at our matutinal tub, to point a moral and adorn the ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... scissors, impudent as a Spanish woman, snarling as a prudish English woman proclaiming her conjugal rights, coquettish as a great lady, though more frank, and ready for everything; a perfect lionne in her way; issuing from the little apartment of which she had dreamed so often, with its red-calico curtains, its Utrecht velvet furniture, its tea-table, the cabinet of china with painted designs, the sofa, the little moquette carpet, the alabaster clock and candlesticks (under glass cases), the yellow bedroom, the eider-down quilt,—in short, all the domestic joys of a ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... cleansing, and the first and main thing that we have to do in order to make ourselves pure is to keep ourselves in union with Him, in whom inhere and abide all the energies that cleanse men's souls. Take the unbleached calico and spread it out on the green grass, and let the blessed sunshine come down upon it, and sprinkle it with fair water; and the grass and the moisture and the sunshine will do all the cleansing, and it will ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... near shore, taking almost a sand bath; the more adventurous going further and further out, till the last party bathed beyond the last sand bank. Not dressed in the latest Cape May fashion, nor the latest fashion of any kind; for each had brought some dress too old to be hurt with salt water. Calico frocks, of every hue and pattern,—caps, hand kerchiefs, sun-bonnets,—gave additional force to the cries and shouts and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... Whitelaw a punctual visitor in the snug panelled parlour, and at such times the bailiff insisted upon his daughter's presence; she was obliged to sit there night after night, stitching monotonously at some unknown calico garment—which might well from the state of mind of the worker have been her winding-sheet; or darning one of an inexhaustible basket of woollen stockings belonging to her father. It was her irksome duty to be there, ready to receive any awkward compliment of her silent lover's, ready to acquiesce ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... If I tried to do it, I think I could make the people here buy, certainly accept, and wear, clothing. With what result at present? That they would think that wearing a yard of unbleached calico was a real evidence of the reception of the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nursery-maid, to blush at the blunt admiration of the policeman, talking to her down the area. Punch is independent and original in this respect. His strange creed seems to be, that human nature is human nature,—whether, in its feminine department, you robe it in silk or calico, and, in its male department, button a red coat over the breast of an officer of the Guards, or put the coarse jerkin on the broad back of the industrious toilsman. And according to this whimsical belief, he writes and talks ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... this moment that, on raising my eyes, I saw Babet's white skirts standing out against the dark ground at the top of the pathway. I recognized her printed calico gown, which was grey, with small blue flowers. I sunk down deeper in the grass, I heard my heart thumping against the earth and almost raising me with slight jerks. My breast was burning now, I no longer felt ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... CALICO FURNITURE. When curtains or bed furniture of this description are to be taken down for the summer, shake off the loose dust, and lightly brush them with a small long-haired furniture brush. Wipe them afterwards very closely ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... in the tall grass by the roadside and shook her red curls from her eyes. She gave a breathless gasp and began fanning herself with the flap of her white sunbonnet. A fine moisture shone on her bare neck and arms above her frock of sprigged chintz calico. ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... in the country especially, nothing can be more fun or more appropriate than a barn dance, or an impromptu play, or a calico masquerade, with properties and clothes made of any old thing and in a few hours—even in ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... train of her pale satin draperies, the high, transparent cap, the crisp fichu crossed over the breast, which set off to advantage the charming little plump figure with its rounded lines—could fail to recognise the same characteristics which sparkled about the wearer of the pink calico domino in which she frolicked incognito 'till she was tired' at a ball given by the Duke of Wellington in 1814, or of the eight blue feathers which crowned the waving tresses of her ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... shoulder. I saw his tiny fat arm rise and fall in a workmanlike manner. And then the four cottage windows of the Diana came into view retreating swiftly down the river. The sashes were up, and one of the white calico curtains was fluttered straight out like a streamer above the ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... the nearest stream. These nullahs constitute the great danger of hunting in the country. In the fields men may be noticed, in the scantiest of attire, working with hoes among their springing crops; women, wrapped up in the dark blue calico cloth which forms their ordinary costume, are working as hard as the men. Villages are scattered about, generally close to groves of trees. The huts are built of mud; most of them are flat-topped, but some ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... good to me. Men are nice creeters, but you don't want to see too meny of 'em to once, likeways with wimmen. Josiah looked to me at that moment some like a calico dress that you have picked out of a dense quantity of patterns of calico at a store, it looks better to you when you get it away from the rest. Josiah Allen looked ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... went on briskly. Some kind ladies sent a piece of strong calico to make him some shirts, and from morning to night Mrs Hadden's busy fingers were plying her needle till they were finished. Other friends supplied his different wants, and he was soon quite ready to accompany Lieutenant Charlton. The day to leave home came. The worst part of the business ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... for self-acting tools Promotions of lads The Trades' Union again Strike against Platt Brothers Edward Tootal's advice Friendliness between engineering firms Small high-pressure engines Uses of waste steam Improvements in calico-printing Improvements at Woolwich Arsenal Enlargement of workshops Improved machine tools The gun foundry and laboratories Orders for Spain and Russia Rope factory machinery Russian Officers Grand Duke Constantine Lord Ellesmere's ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... approval or disapprobation concerning the state of affairs behind the green shutters. It was a warm night and the big round moon sailed serenely in a cloudless, blue sky. Mrs. Tuckley had put on a clean calico wrapper, and planted herself with the indomitable Stella on her ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... of light posts and thin laths occupied the greater part of the deck amidships of the Emma. The four walls of that airy structure were made of muslin. It was comparatively lofty. A door-like arrangement of light battens filled with calico was further protected by a system of curtains calculated to baffle the pursuit of mosquitoes that haunted the shores of the lagoon in great singing clouds from sunset till sunrise. A lot of fine mats covered the deck space within the transparent ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... nouns ending in o add s; as, cameo, cameos. A number of nouns ending in o preceded by a consonant add es; as, volcano, volcanoes. The most important of the latter class are: buffalo, cargo, calico, echo, embargo, flamingo, hero, motto, mulatto, negro, ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... particularly private. Even Phillips, the gardener, told them every time that he came in to take a hop-pole for his beans, and old Hobden would no more have thought of setting his rabbit-wires there without leave, given fresh each spring, than he would have torn down the calico and marking ink notice on the big willow which said: 'Grown-ups not allowed in ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... similar association was organized in Manchester, one of the new industrial cities dominated by modern ideas, crowded with factories, and populous with laboring men and women, a fit center for such an agitation as was to precede the downfall of the tax on food. In Manchester, too, in the person of a calico-printer named Richard Cobden, the agitation found its mainspring and its ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... of making frocks for herself out of grand'mA"re's calico dresses, folded so neatly in the cupboard. But grand'mA"re, she argued, would need them for herself when the Great Day came, when ClA(C)ment and Fernand and Alphonse would come with ringing laughter through the forest—laughter ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... But the latter have not the monopoly of those raids which procure the slaves for them. The negro kings also make atrocious wars with each other, and with the same object. Then the vanquished adults, the women and children, reduced to slavery, are sold by the vanquishers for a few yards of calico, some powder, a few firearms, pink or red pearls, and often even, as Livingstone says, in periods of famine, for a ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... peculiar grass that fringed it. On its bank had stood a village of the Crow Indians, and here a half-breed trader had settled. He bought the red man's furs, and gave him in return bright-colored beads and pieces of calico, paints, and blankets. In a short time he had all the furs in the village; he packed them on ponies, and said good by to his Indian friends. They were sorry to see him go, but he told them he would soon return from the ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... two comedians in calico, beating each other about the body, he rose with an audible "Pish!" and made his way out. He stopped in the street to scribble on his card, "Will you see me?—G. F." and took it round to the stage-door. The answer ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... old party with only one eye and his legs thrust into a red shirt—into the armholes that is, with the rest of the garment rolled round his waist—announced he was ready to give fresh provisions for calico, red and blue, and several sections of the brass rod that passes for currency on the West Coast. While Frank, Harry and Sikaso were bargaining behind a hut, over the price to be charged for a razor-backed porker of suspicious appearance the village suddenly became ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... and leathery with time and storm and exposure to the winds of the hills. Still, old as she seemed to be, she walked alertly, with the swinging grace of the true mountain woman. She was very plainly dressed in a one-piece gown of dark calico. Her head was not covered at all, and the white hair took on a tinge of gold from the distant campfire. Her black eyes were sharp, yet ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Bryda and Betty seating themselves on either side of their grandfather, while Dorothy Burrow stood before him, her stout red arms uncovered, her elbows stuck on either side of her thick waist, and the frills of her big calico cap blown ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... could turn swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks, as saith the Scriptures, their soldier folk turned clothing boxes into couches, soap boxes into cradles, and pork barrels into fauteuils. Chintz and calico, like charity, covered a multitude of sins, as declared in unsightly cracks and knotholes. The finest reclining chair in all Camp Almy belonged to the doctor, a composite of condemned stretchers and shelter tent. The best dining-room set was sawed out ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... object of her remark. She was riding slowly along in an open carriage, a short distance from the city, accompanied by a relative. The young man, her companion, looked across the road at a woman, whose attire was certainly not in any way very near approach to the fashion of the day. She had on a faded calico dress, short in the waist; stout leather shoes; the remains of what had once been a red merino long shawl, and a dingy old Leghorn bonnet of the style of ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... the garment will fade it, have the water moderately warm, and put in a handful of salt, when all the dirt is out, rinse them in clean water, starch, and hang them to dry on the wrong side, where they will get the air but not the sun. Alum is good to set colors. If you want to wash a calico dress, which you know will fade, make a corn mush, and as it boils, pour off half, which use as soap in washing the dress, and with the other half, (which should be boiled well,) starch it, and hang ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... morning in answer to her prayer. But it was more than enough. As a consistent Christian, having asked the Lord only for enough to meet but one need, she felt as if the rest belonged to the Lord and must be used for Him. So in wondering how to use it, she thought of a poor woman who needed a new calico dress, and at once bought it and gave it to her. She had but $5 left. A dear friend was in distress; his horse and carriage had been seized for failure to pay the livery bill of their keeping; he could not collect any money of the debts due him, to pay his bill, and had ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... she looked she was aware of two old brown faces anxiously gazing after her. Giacomo and Assunta were chattering eagerly in the doorway, the black of his butler's dress and the white of his protecting apron making his wife's purple calico skirt and red shoulder shawl look more gay. They caught the last flutter of the girl's blue linen gown as it ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... walked unsteadily to the corner of the room, and from its place behind a calico curtain he took out ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... de Secours was closed for the first time since Madame de Vigny and her three young infirmieres had come to Noyon. Two women stood without, one plump and bareheaded, the other aged and bent, with a calico handkerchief tied over her hair. They stared at the printed card tacked upon the entrance of the large patched-up house that served as Headquarters ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... generation of the family had produced patchwork curtains and coverlet; and patchwork was patchwork in those days, before the early Yates and Peels had found out the secret of printing the parsley-leaf. Scraps of costly Indian chintzes and palempours were intermixed with commoner black and red calico in minute hexagons; and the variety of patterns served for the useful purpose of promoting conversation as well as the more obvious one of displaying the work-woman 's taste. Sylvia, for instance, began at once to ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... HAEMATOXYLON CAMPECHIANUM.—The logwood tree. This dyestuff is largely used by calico printers and other dyeing manufacturers. It is also used as an ingredient in some writing inks. The heart wood is the part used for dyeing. This is cut into chips which yield their color to water ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... keep body and soul together; and now, how they could nohow manage to do it. The bare details of the ages of their children, and what the little things could do, and the prices of bacon and bread, and calico and coals, had more pathos in them ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... nohow—this here Arizona. She's fine! But she's a man's country every time! Only sech as me and Jack Corliss and Bud and them kind is fit to take the risks of makin' good in this here State. But we're makin' good, you calico-hoss! Listen:— ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... screw into the handle, will form an instantaneous shelter from sun or rain during a halt on the march, as a few strings from the rings will secure it from the wind, if pegged to the ground. Waterproof calico sheeting should be taken in large quantities, and a tarpaulin to protect the baggage during the night's bivouac. No vulcanised India-rubber should be employed in tropical climates; it rots, and becomes useless. A quart syringe for injecting ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... and at twelve years of age was taken from it. His father wanted him to become a warehouse merchant like himself, and he began life as clerk or apprentice to an auctioneer. He next went into the employment of some calico-printers of Manchester. The designing of calicoes can hardly be called art, even if the department of design had fallen to Holman Hunt's lot and we have no evidence that it did, but he started to be an artist nevertheless, there in the print-shop. He found in his new place another clerk who cared ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... slip of a thing, a trifle too tall for her years, perhaps, yet with no lack of development apparent in the slim, rounded figure. Her coarse home-made dress of dark calico fitted her sadly, while her rumpled hair, from which the broad-brimmed hat had fallen, possessed a reddish copper tinge where it was touched by the sun. Mr. Hampton's survey did not increase his desire for more intimate acquaintanceship, yet he recognized ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... dat she's on to de fact dat gals is dead easy when a feller comes spielin' ghost stories and tryin' to make up, and dat's why she won't listen to no soft-soap. She says she caught yer dead to rights, huggin' a bunch o' calico in de hot-house. She side-stepped in to pull some posies and yer was squeezin' de oder gal to beat de band. She says it looked cute, all right all right, but it made her sick. She says yer better git busy, and make a ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... a home-made apartment. The walls, floor, and ceiling were of unpainted wood, but the wood was perfectly fresh, and smelt pleasantly of resin. The window was preposterously small, with only four squares of glass in it, and it was curtained with mere calico, but the calico was rose-coloured, which imparted a delightfully warm glow to the room, and the view from the window of pine-woods and cliffs, and snow-fields, backed by the distant sea, was magnificent. Two little beds in the corner furthest from the window looked so snug that the ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... in her big, rough shoes, on the heels of which her scant brown calico gown was lifted as she walked, trudged shyly along between the two young people, as carefully watched and helped over the humps and bumps of the way as if she had been a princess. Margaret noticed with a happy approval how Gardley's hand was ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... the chickens, with easy familiarity, peck at the crumbs which fall upon her black shins. Within the cabin, Polly, the miller's wife, has tied a string of beads about her sleek black throat, and now, in all the bravery of her flowered calico, is ready to set off for the quarter; first, though, she pauses at the gate to speak to ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... chlorine with hydrogen gas, the blackening of silver salts, the reduction of bichromate of potash and of certain ferric salts in contact with organic substances, are all familiar instances of the action of light. In illustration of this, I show here some calico prints produced by first preparing the calico with a solution of potassium bichromate, then exposing the dried calico under a photographic negative, and, after washing, dyeing with alizarin or some similar coloring ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... cabbage : brasiko. cabin : kajuto, kabano. cabinet : cxambreto, kabineto. cable : sxnurego, kablo. cage : kagxo. calico : kalikoto. calk : kalfatri. call : voki, (—"together") kunvoki. callosity : kalo. calm : kvieta, trankvila. camel : kamelo. camp : tendaro. canary : kanario. candid : sincera, verdirema. candidate : kandidato, aspiranto. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... large lady at the gate, splendidly starched in her afternoon calico, regarded him without personal interest. He was merely an old resident likely to clear up a matter that had been blurred during her years of absence in the West. Jim's eyes traveled past her to the garden in the rear of the house, where yellow ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... town was not signalized by a greater promptness in admitting her; and her surprise was increased when, instead of the expected footman, pushing his shoulders into a tardy coat, a shabby care-taking person in calico let her into the shrouded hall. Trenor, however, appeared at once on the threshold of the drawing-room, welcoming her with unusual volubility while he relieved her of her cloak and drew her into ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... turning into the principal avenue strewn with gravel, we met a funeral procession. Four bearers, wearing white calico sashes and muddy high boots with leaves sticking on them, carried the brown coffin. It was getting dark and they hastened, stumbling and shaking their ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... sign of rain; and as bushmen only pitch tent when a deluge is expected, our camp was very simple: just camp sleeping mosquito-nets, with calico tops and cheese net for curtains—hanging by cords between stout stakes driven into the ground. "Mosquito pegs," the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Royal Jubilee Exhibition, Messrs. Butterworth & Dickinson, Burnley, showed Catlow's patent dobby, which is illustrated above, as applied to a strong calico loom. This dobby is a double lift one, thus obtaining a wide shed, and the use of two lattice barrels connected by gearing so that they both revolve in the same direction. The jack lever is attached to the vertical levers, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... groups with their bags at their feet, or on the head of some native near by. The cars were before us, and native women passed about with their waiters of fruit and cakes. They were dressed in white or light-colored muslin or calico skirts, flounced, torn, and dirty; a white chemise, with a ruffle round the neck trimmed with lace, and a bandanna handkerchief tied round the head completed their toilet. In a picture it would look very well; as it was, one dreaded ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... evidence as to the cost of their production, one way or the other. But, secondly, I beg the reader to consider what is meant by the alleged 'inability' of New England and Pennsylvania to compete, let us say, with Manchester and Sheffield, in the manufacture of calico and cutlery. What it means, and what it only can mean, is that they are unable to do so consistently with obtaining that rate of remuneration on their industry which is current in the United States. If only American laborers and ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... silent. The guests now began to leave. And as I was going back to my hut for the night I came to Reverdy and Sarah to bid them God-speed. I had never seen Sarah look so charming. Her bridal dress was made of striped calico. She had a bonnet to match. Reverdy had a new suit of blue jeans. He looked handsome and strong. And he turned his eyes upon Sarah with a look of protecting tenderness. I took their hands in mine to emphasize my blessing with the closeness of affectionate contact. ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... days every girl in that village had been to that store after something or another—pins, needles, a yard of tape, to look at gloves, to try on shoes, or examine gingham and calico, until I was happy, because out of sight, behind a pile high enough to hide my flushed countenance. I shall never forget that week. I ran the gauntlet from morning till night. I believe those heartless wretches told each other the mistakes I made, for ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... cook go wid her she dress her up in some her fine dresses—big white cap like missus slep in an' a white apron tied round her waist. We wore 5 calico and gingham dresses for best. She'd buy three and four bolts at Augusta [Georgia] and have it made up to work in. We didn't spin and weave till the war come on. Some old men come round making spinnin' wheels. They was very plain too nearly bout rough. Rich ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... Renton, where there were bleaching and calico printing works. A public library graced the centre of the village, as well as a fine Tuscan column nearly 60 feet high, erected to Tobias Smollett, the poet, historian and novelist, who was born in 1721 not half a mile from the spot. The houses were small and not ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... His stub of a tail jerked spasmodically, in its struggle to wag. Then with two or three delirious yelps of joy he started madly down the lane. At the sound of his voice the door of the gray house opened. A tall, thin woman in a bluish homespun skirt and red calico waist came out, and moved slowly across the yard to welcome ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Tops for Convenient Holders.—For soft, convenient holders use old stocking tops. Take two thicknesses, cut in squares, bind all around with some bias pieces left from calico dresses and sew a brass ring on ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... richer than his fellows, and there was no aristocracy; the women wore linsey-woolsey of home manufacture, and dyed them in accordance with the tastes of the wearers; calico was rarely seen, and a woman wearing a dress of that material was the envy ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... desire this liberty, which was granted. Captain Newport went ashore with forty men, and found the governor sitting on a mat, under the side of a junk which was then building, and attended by fifty men. He was dressed in a mantle of blue and red calico, wrapped about him to his knees, his legs and feet bare, and his head covered by a close cap of checquer work. Being presented with a gun and sword, he returned four cows, and proclaimed liberty for the people to trade with us. He gave the English cocoa-nuts ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... day they were very active, pottering about with hammers and nails and red calico, to put up curtains, make their house habitable and pretty; resolved to settle down comfortably to their new life. For them an impossible task. To grapple effectually with even purely material problems requires more serenity of mind and more lofty courage ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... bestowal of some sort of present. Not wishing to be ungallant, and desiring to gain information of the customs and manners of my savage wards, I ordered my baker to prepare several barrels of ginger bread, and purchased many yards of gaily colored calico, which I had cut into proper pieces for women's dresses, and with this outfit, ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... church, I found that it had been decorated for a funeral. A broad band of black drapery, upon which had been sewn at intervals Death's heads and tears, cut out of white calico, was hung against the wall of the apse, and carried far down each side of the nave. To me all those grinning white masks were needless torture to the mourners; but here again we are brought to recognise that taste is ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... early and very late Newbern there was once a shining summer morning on which the Cowan twins, being then nine years old, set out from the Penniman home to pick wild blackberries along certain wooded lanes that environed the town. They were bare-footed, wearing knee pants buttoned to calico waists, these being patterned with small horseshoes which the twins had been told by their father would bring them good luck. They wore cloth caps, and carried tin pails for their berries. These would be sold to the Pennimans at an agreed price of five cents a quart, and it was Winona's ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... The world's gone smash. There's nothin' regular an' uniform no more. The multiplication table's gone loco. Two is eight, nine is eleven, and two-times-six is eight hundred an' forty-six—an'—an' a half. Anything is everything, an' nothing's all, an' twice all is cold-cream, milk-shakes, an' calico horses. You've got a system. Figgers beat the figgerin'. What ain't is, an' what isn't has to be. The sun rises in the west, the moon's a pay-streak, the stars is canned corn-beef, scurvy's the blessin' of ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... applications of Chemistry. The bleacher, the dyer, the calico-printer, are severally occupied in processes that are well or ill done according as they do or do not conform to chemical laws. Smelting of copper, tin, zinc, lead, silver, iron, must be guided by chemistry. Sugar-refining, gas-making, soap-boiling, gunpowder-manufacture, are ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... sail bellied gently to the wind and the junk broke the violet breeze shadow beyond the calm of the sheltered water, a voice came over the sea, a voice like the clamour of a hundred gulls, thin, rending, fierce as the sound of tearing calico. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... went. Mrs Hughes had pinned up a piece of green calico, by way of a Venetian blind, to shut out the afternoon sun; and in the light thus shaded lay Ruth, still, and wan, and white. Even with her brother's account of Ruth's state, such death-like quietness startled ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... waiting natives, while Titihuti of the tattooed legs took her seat beside me. She had combed her Titian tresses and anointed them with oil till they shone like the kelp beds of Monterey. Her tunic was of scarlet calico, and she carried in her hand a straw hat with a red ribbon, to put on when she entered the church. "Kaoha!" I said to her, and she smiled, displaying ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Mr. Burrows. He was likewise indicted and found guilty for assaulting Sarah, the wife of Robert King, on the highway, and robbing her of two shillings and sixpence. As likewise on a third indictment, for assaulting the aforesaid Thomas Eldridge, and taking from him a calico gown and petticoat, value twenty shillings, the goods of Giles Betts. There was a fourth indictment against him for assaulting Mary, the wife of Joseph Page, and taking from her two shillings and sixpence, but the three ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... answered and said, with a smile, the excellent landlord: "Faith! I am sorry to lose it, my good old calico wrapper, Real East-Indian stuff: I never shall get such another. Well, I had given up wearing it: nowadays, custom compels us Always to go in surtout, and never appear but in jacket; Always to have on our boots; forbidden ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... silk, calico, home-spun, or feathers, friends are such valuable possessions that we must pay these folks who are now announced as much attention as possible. And if we do this and in every way endeavor to make them feel comfortable and entirely at home, we will soon perceive a very great difference ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... the same religion. My old priests, with their heavy old-fashioned copes, had always seemed to me like the magi, from whose lips came the eternal truths, whereas the new religion to which I was introduced was all print and calico, a piety decked out with ribbons and scented with musk, a devotion which found expression in tapers and small flower-pots, a young lady's theology without stay or style, as composite as the polychrome frontispiece of one ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... to a village or a farm Where I'll get up at six instead of twelve, Where I'll wear calico instead of silk, And where there'll be no furnace in the house. And where the carpet which has kept me here And keeps you here as editor is not. I'm going to economize my life By freeing it of systems which grow rich By using me, and for the privilege Bestow these gaudy clothes and ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... sacredly. One was the certificate of her mother's marriage. The girl did not know what the others were. She had never looked into them closely, but she knew that her mother had counted them precious. These she pinned into the bosom of her calico gown. ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... her with extreme graciousness of manner, and it was quite plain to her that if he recognized her in her silk gown as the person who, in a calico dress, had opened the front door for him, he had determined to make her feel that he ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... children who were to take part in Bunny's and Sue's show were in the barn, waiting for the curtain to be pulled back. For grandmother and Mother Brown had made a calico curtain for the children. Bunker Blue and Ben said they would stand, one on either side, to pull the curtain ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... to some boy. It seems to me you are too big a toy for a little girl," said the Calico Clown ...
— The Story of a Stuffed Elephant • Laura Lee Hope
... with a feminine rustle of skirts; and as she hastened to peep in she caught a momentary glimpse of a bit of brown petticoat, which vanished behind a big picture draped, together with the easel, with black calico, to the floor. There could be no doubt that a woman was hiding there. How often Olga Ivanovna herself had taken ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... gloves, silks, lace, or curtains—he would simply have bowed politely, and with a drooping expression, and making a kind of circular sweep, invited you to "step this way," and so led you beyond his ken; but under other and happier conditions,—huckaback, blankets, dimity, cretonne, linen, calico, are cases in point,—he would have requested you to take a seat, emphasising the hospitality by leaning over the counter and gripping a chair back in a spasmodic manner, and so proceeded to obtain, unfold, and exhibit his goods ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells |
