"Ironing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... private opinion that the little shifts and struggles we poor girls have to undergo beforehand give a peculiar relish to our fun when we get it. This fact will account for the rapturous mood in which Polly found herself when, after making her bonnet, washing and ironing her best set, blacking her boots and mending her fan, she at last, like Consuelo, "put on a little dress of black silk" and, with the smaller adornments pinned up in a paper, started for the Shaws', finding it difficult to walk decorously ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... machine for ironing the clothes," answered Bob. "They all run by electricity, too. The waste water from the pond runs a turbine water wheel and that's connected by a belt to an electric generator, a machine for changing mechanical energy to electrical energy, you know; ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... bench and tools were placed just underneath it, and above his head a linnet hopped and twittered in a green cage. Kit's perambulator occupied one corner, while Kit herself, seated at the table in a high chair, was busily engaged in ironing out some ragged doll-garments with a tiny bent flat-iron. Anna regarded her pitifully—the small shrunken figure and sunken chest, and the thin white face with its halo of red curls. But Kit was almost too absorbed with her endeavour to get the creases out of a doll's petticoat ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... water-pipes anywhere and the decomposition of the fluid begins, and you will have floods of light for the mere cost of the machine. I've nearly got the lighting part, but I want to attach to it a heating, cooking, washing and ironing apparatus. It's going to be the great thing, but we'd better keep this appropriation going while I am ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... the good people of Bethany imagined. As a matter of fact, a more corrupt Chinaman had never been smuggled into America. Ostensibly in the laundry business, and really a master workman in that line, the astute Chink had long since relinquished the labor over the tubs and ironing-board to Hop Wah, his silent partner. Ah Moy's chief interest in the establishment lay in its cavernous sub-cellar, where he conducted gaming tables and a smoking-'parlor' with flattering success. The gods evidently smiled upon him, for his den seemed ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... If a man wanted such a housekeeper, why did he not get one? There were plenty of single women, who understood washing, ironing, clear-starching, cooking, and general housekeeping, better than the little canary-bird which he fell in love with, and wanted for her plumage and her song, for her merry tricks, for her bright eyes and pretty ways. Now ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... expenditure of a certain amount of money, and money Alice had not—not even enough to pay a Chinaman for "doing up" one of her pretty muslins. Neither had she the facilities for doing them herself, had she been skilled in that sort of labor; for even to do your own washing and ironing pre-supposes the usual conveniences of a laundry, and these did not belong to the furniture of the outside kitchen. She had not worn her linen lawn since the visit to the mill. The dust which blew freely through every crack of the shrunken boards precluded such extravagance. Thus it happened ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... behind her this morning, with Dakie Thayne, thinking how "achy" Elinor Hadden's puffs and French-blue bands, and bits of embroidery looked, for the stitches somebody had put into them, and the weary starching and ironing and perking out that must be done for them, beside the simple hem and the one narrow basque ruffling of Leslie's cambric morning-dress, which had its color and its set-off in itself, in the bright little carnations with brown stems that figured it. It was "trimmed ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... that Lizzie had faithfully carried out her part of the bargain. The three babies were done up in bright-coloured calico dresses; she had spent the morning in washing and ironing these garments—also her own dress, which was half-red and half-green, and of generous, almost crinoline proportions. Lizzie herself was built on that scale, with broad hips and bosom, big brown eyes and heavy dark hair. She was a fine strong woman when she ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... All I ask is that you go on quietly with your work and pay no attention to her. You know well enough that I can't have such goings on. I want you to let Jane help you and learn her to do everything as far as she can. Mrs. Mumpson can do the mending and ironing, I suppose. At any rate, I won't have any more quarreling and uproar. I'm a quiet man and intend to have a quiet house. You and Jane can get along very well in the kitchen, and you say you understand ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... were not buying; but our pride was brought down in the little shop where the proprietress was too much concerned in cooking her dinner (it smelled delicious) to mind our wish for a very cheap green vase, inestimably Spanish after we got it home. However, in another shop where the lady was ironing her week's wash on the counter, a lady friend who was making her an afternoon call got such a vase down for us and transacted the negotiation out of pure good will for both parties ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... of the scenes of human life hitherto veiled from the eyes of the most prying—a genuine specimen of the sponge species—at home! Actually living under a roof that he calls his own; in company with a wife who is certainly nobody else's. She is ironing—Tarradiddle is smoking, and, like all smokers, philosophising. Here we learn the Honourable Charles Norwold and his wife have taken lodgings; hither they are pursued by Hilary, who has managed to ingratiate himself with Warner, and undertaken ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... anxious that I should take off the rudder, which was certainly useless to a boat situated as ours was, and make an ironing-table of it. I persisted that the laws of symmetrical propriety required that the rudder should remain where it was—that the very name of our home would be interfered with by its removal, but he insisted that "Ironing-table Grange" would be just as good a name, and that ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... tired of him, nor he of them. He was with them when he wanted to be—instantly. Or they came to the flat in the friendliest way. And when its unpleasant duties claimed him—the Monday wash, the Tuesday ironing, the Saturday scrubbing, or the regular everyday jobs such as dishes, beds, cooking, bead-stringing, and violet-making—frequently they helped him, lightening his work with their charming companionship, stimulating him with their example ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... IRONING TABLE AND CLOTHES DRYER.—William P. Adams, Brooklyn, N.Y.—This invention relates to a new and useful improvement in an article for the laundry, and consists in an adjustable ironing table, and in combination therewith ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... blankets and white cotton sheets. A white cloth is spread on the table when food is to be eaten. Europeans wear many clothes. All these have to be washed whenever they are dirty, and so one person will be kept busy all day washing and ironing if there are many people living ...
— People of Africa • Edith A. How
... rows of similar windows opposite—rows of the same sort of windows that run for miles and miles in London. In one a man sat smoking in his shirtsleeves, from another a slavey leaned out watching a fourwheeler that had stopped next door, in a third a woman sat sewing, and in a fourth a woman was ironing, with a glimpse of a bedstead behind her. And all outside was gloom ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... acquired, with possibly a branch of their Palm Sunday pussy willows. A narrow room, monopolizing one of the windows, opened from the living-room, beyond the oven, and served as pantry and kitchen. A wooden trough, like a chopping-tray, was the washtub. The ironing or mangling apparatus consisted of a rolling-pin, round which the article of clothing was wrapped, and a curved paddle of hard wood, its under-surface carved in pretty geometrical designs, with which it was ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... grease on its cover, it can be removed by scraping French chalk or magnesia over the place, and ironing with a warm (not hot) iron. A simpler method is to apply benzine to the grease spots, (which dissolves the fatty material) and then dry the spot quickly with a fine cloth. This operation may be repeated, if not effectual at the first trial. The same method of applying benzine to ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... and went over the way. Here she found a somewhat tidy woman at work ironing. Nobody else in the room. She made known her errand. The woman looked ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... stranger?" Alix said. "If Peter's a stranger," she added animatedly, "what is an intimate friend? Peter walks through this house at all hours; you can't wash your hair or do a little ironing without having Peter under your feet; he borrows money from me; he bullies Hong about ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... it would be a good way to get even with Duffy, when he was weak, and I went down there to his shanty and gave him his medicine, and read to him all day, and he cried 'cause he knew I ought to have mauled him, and that night I sat up with him while his Ma did the ironing, and Duffy was so glad that I went down every day and stayed there every night, and fired medicine down him, and let his Ma sleep, and Duffy has got mashed on me, and he says I will be an angel when I die. Last night makes five nights I have sat up with him, and ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... as yet folded and fresh from its ironing, and handed it to Georgiana. "Will you tear that into strips an inch wide, please, while I take a look back here for a bit of wood?" and he disappeared down the road, while Georgiana with the aid of her strong white teeth tore the fine linen ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... hurrying steps outside, and the fresh young voice thrilling over those familiar words brought the woman to her senses, and with a cry of desperation, Aunt Maria caught up the heavy ironing board in the corner and banged it with all her strength full upon the hissing coil on the floor, regardless of the fate of the cat. But the hysterical scream of the woman had broken the charm, and the frightened ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Mr. Steadman is mistaken about women not wanting to sit in Parliament. He perhaps does not know what it feels like to stand over a wash-tub—or an ironing board—or cook over a hot stove. Women who have been doing these things long would ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... difficulties and hardships on account of poverty, finally settled in what appears to have been then a wilderness, "the woods of Watervliet, near Niskeyuna, about seven miles northwest of Albany." In the mean time Ann Lee had supported herself by washing and ironing in New York, and her husband had misconducted himself so grossly toward her that they finally separated, he going ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... alone will give a good appetite. I wonder how you could expect to relish your food after lounging about doing nothing all the morning! I'll be bound that if you had been in your shop ironing hats or waiting on your customers since breakfast-time, there would have been no complaint ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... no house-keeper counts either washing, ironing, or bread-making as part of her domestic cares. All the family washing goes out to a laundry; and being attended to by those who make that department of labor a specialty, it comes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... actual expenses should be shared fairly and a considerable saving would be effected when the output was distributed amongst the members. In the same way, the co-operative group might arrange for household help. One skilled houseworker might assist with the work of three or four households. Washing, ironing, cleaning, dusting, mending, dressmaking, sewing, shopping, and the care of the telephone, could be carried on either partly or wholly by members of the group in return for other service, or by paid helpers who in every ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... followed his humble conductor into the small but cosy living-room behind, which the large number of its occupants caused to appear even smaller than it was. John Dudgeon was there, and Mrs. John, and several offshoots of the Dudgeon tree. Mrs. Dudgeon was ironing at a table beneath the one small window, in the fading light. She was a staid and dapper matron, with here and there the faintest line of care upon her comely face. A couple of the children were rolling upon the hearthrug ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... drive into these corrals about twenty saddle horses. They had barely time to tie their mounts outside and enter the pen, when four of us slipped in behind them and changed the programme a trifle. El Lobo was one of the men. He was very polite and nice, but that didn't prevent us from ironing him securely, as we did his ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... she did not appeal to Chilian, though he was out. I said, 'No,' very decidedly, 'that she had a good many things to learn before she tackled that.' And she said she ought to be trained while her fingers were flexible, and I said I thought washing would make them flexible enough. And there's fine ironing." ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... associates. Her intelligence was great. Ambition was awakened in her before she was ten years of age, when she began to learn and to recite poems—learning them, as has been said, "between the wash-tub and the ironing-board," and reciting them to the admiration of older and wiser people than she. Even at ten she was a very beautiful child, with great lambent eyes, an exquisite complexion, and a lovely form, while she had the further gift of a voice that thrilled the listener and, when she ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... and when the baby was laid in his cot she took up her sewing—she was making herself a new dress; or else the great kettle was steaming on the hob, and the women stood over the washing-tubs. On the following evening they worked on either side of the ironing-table, the candle burning brightly and their vague woman's chatter sounding pleasant in the hush of the little cottage. A little after nine they were in bed, and so the days went softly, like happy, ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... Klu Kluxes and come to town, to Snow Hill. We rented a little house and my mother took in washing and ironing. I went to school and learned to read and write, then worked on farms, and fin'ly went to Columbia, in South Carolina, and worked in the turpentine country. I stayed there a while ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... steel-trap, who remained with me just one week, and then went off in a fit of spite. To her succeeded a rosy, good-natured, merry lass, who broke the crockery, burned the dinner, tore the clothes in ironing, and knocked down every thing that stood in her way about the house, without at all discomposing herself about the matter. One night she took the stopper from a barrel of molasses, and came singing off up stairs, while ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... had been cold all day. A sound like the tolling of a bell beat in her ears. The children's voices were choked and distant. She wondered if Biddy were drunk, she seemed to dance about so at her ironing-table, and wondered if she must dismiss her, and who could supply her place. She tried to put my room in order, for she was expecting me that night by the last train, but gave up the undertaking in weariness ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... odds. 'Also 1 set leading harness; 2 tressels and ironing board; 2 fenders; fire-irons and fire-dogs; 1 old oak chest; 1 wardrobe; 1 Brussels carpet (worn ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... failed to be impressed the clerk turned tail and fled. The ghost returned by a short cut, and the clerk found his wife calmly ironing the parson's surplice. He did not return to ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... as Venus—I don't know Venus, but I have heard that she takes the cake—I say, if you find one that is perfect in everything, but shirks her duties at home, and plays, "I Want to Be an Angel," on the piano, while her mother is mending her stockings, or ironing her picnic skirts, then let her go ahead and be an angel as quick as she wants to, but don't give her the machine. ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... broad daylight came she felt as though her bones were water and her body a wisp of straw. She could not bear to meet Shiel Crozier's eyes, and thus it was she had an early breakfast on the plea that she had ironing to do. She was not, however, prepared to see Jesse Bulrush drive up with a buggy after breakfast and take Crozier away. When she did see them at the gate the impulse came to cry out to Crozier; what to say she ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... threads raveled or drawn, so as to make the ends exactly straight. Napkins should be washed before being cut apart. When not required for regular use, the linen should be folded loosely, and laid away without ironing in some place where it will not be subjected to pressure. When needed, it can be ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... We are dining early to-day, and having nothing but cold meat, in order that the servants may get on with their ironing; and yet, of course, we must ask him to dinner—Edith's brother-in-law and all. And your papa is in such low spirits this morning about something—I don't know what. I went into the study just now, and he had his face on the table, covering it with his hands. I told him I was ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... don't get away from your dungeon of a house. I haven't, God be thanked! cost you one penny during the twelve years I've been with you, and you have had the pleasure of my company into the bargain. I could have earned my own living anywhere with the work that I've done here,—washing, ironing, looking after the linen, going to market, cooking, taking care of your interests before everything, slaving myself to death from morning till ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... in his high chair as good as gold, a precious, watching me doing of the ironing. Get along with you, do—my ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... laundry work. As she understood things, her niece had risen above that sort of thing. The question as to whether she was to become a laundress or not did not occur to Katusha, either. She looked with pity at the thin, hard-worked laundresses, some already in consumption, who stood washing or ironing with their thin arms in the fearfully hot front room, which was always full of soapy steam and draughts from the windows, and thought with horror that she might have shared the ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... ironed away with right good will; and as there was really but a handful of things, she had soon done, even to taking off the ironing blanket and putting up the irons. In the mean time she had changed her mind as to stealing off without leave; conscience was too strong for her; and, though with a beating heart, she told of Miss Humphreys' desire and ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... quality. On the contrary, she often tried to overbear us with the gentility of her former places; and would tell the lady over whom she reigned that she had lived with folks worth their three and four hundred thousand dollars, who never complained as she did of the ironing. Yet she had a sufficient regard for the literary occupations of the family, Mr. Johnson having been an author. She even professed to have herself written a book, which was still in manuscript and preserved somewhere among ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... handkerchiefs. Sometimes in the middle of the night, when something goes right in the shop, Douglass comes in and wakes me up. I dress up in a blanket for a court dress, and we wake up Lovey and play our royal visit. Do you blame me for not minding washing and ironing and cooking and toe-poking or dress-shrinking with a brother who is an idol ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... get most of the ironing done this morning, if you'll see to the dinner,' said Pauline, as she put the irons on the stove and went into another room for the heavy ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... stuff,—alapaca, Ma called it,—black, purple and brown, that took every inch of dander out of Polly. She wiped her hands extra clean, and came and twisted them this way and that, and crinkled them and smoothed them, and puckered the ends into folds, and laying them across the ironing-table, backed toward the wall with her head cocked sideways, and her eyes squinted together like Mr. Green's, the portrait-painter, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... Frere, in his scenes from humble life, which the skilful lithographer places within the means of all, represents the incidents of domestic existence among the poor. "The Prayer at the Mother's Knee," "The Woman at her Ironing Table," "The Child shelling Peas," "The Walk to School amid Rain and Sleet," are all charming idyls of every-day life. With yet greater skill and deeper pathos does the peasant Millet tell the story of his neighbors. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... when I worked from sunup to sundown, and we didn't have no daylight-saving contraptions on the old clock, neither. The girls was too little then, and I done all the work myself—cooking, sweeping, washing and ironing, suchlike. I never got to church Sundays because I had to stay home and get the Sunday dinner. Like enough they'd bring the preacher home to dinner. You got to watch chicken—it won't cook itself. Weekdays was one like ...
— Maw's Vacation - The Story of a Human Being in the Yellowstone • Emerson Hough
... raising her head from the ironing-board where, Sphinx-like, magnificent, she swung a splendid arm ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... in the room. They all gave their approval to Miss Wilson's plan. Then they discussed it in detail. The laundry, big and bare, would be an unsuspected place. There were ironing boards and folding tables that ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... out into the night. There was neither moon nor stars and a storm was brewing, but she knew she could find her way in the dark. Quietly and with a great peace in her heart she bathed her swollen face, changed her dress to one fresh from the ironing board—pale blue it was with a dainty vine running through it—threw a wrap about her and went ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... fishing with Jack Bartlett!" cried Randy, running around to the kitchen, where his mother was busy finishing up the week's ironing. ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... spoken of his general cleanliness; I am reminded of one or two exceptions, which I think, however, were errors of zeal. His manner of sprinkling clothes in preparing them for ironing was peculiar. He would fill his mouth with perfectly pure water from a glass beside him, and then, by one dexterous movement of his lips in a prolonged expiration, squirt the water in an almost invisible misty shower on the article before him. Shocking ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... the briefest airing was out of the question. By the time the baby was dressed, coated, and hooded, and little Diego buttoned into gaiters and reefer, and Anne herself had changed her house gown for street wear, and pinned on her hat and veil, and Helma, summoned from her ironing, had bumped Virginia's coach down the back porch steps, and around the wet garden path to the front door,—by the time all this was accomplished, the short winter daylight would be almost gone, she knew, and the crowded hour that began with the ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... their eventful histories the more piquant. If he went to the hotel to see a traveling man on business, there was Tiny, arching her shoulders at him like a kitten. If he went into the laundry to get his collars, there were the four Danish girls, smiling up from their ironing-boards, with their white throats ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... as naive as a little nun, writes in her sealed paper: "Emily is upstairs ironing. I am sitting in the dining-room in the rocking-chair before the fire with my feet on the fender. Papa is in the parlour. Tabby and Martha are, I think, in the kitchen. Keeper and Flossy are, I do not know where. Little ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... away with. She is there to do your work and she does whatever may be called for. If she is asked to take care of the baby for a few hours, she does it willingly, as part of her duties; or if she is called upon to do some ironing left in the basket, she assumes that it is part of her work, and doesn't say, "No, Madam, I wasn't hired to do that," at the same time putting on her hat and leaving as under the ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... help a lot," broke in Mrs. Welcome, hurriedly. "They do all their ironing at night. And that's all anyone could ask of them after they come ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... minute the children hesitated. That was a strange thing to be acting; Mary Jane was not washing or ironing or churning or sweeping or any of the things the children usually acted and they were all puzzled. Then suddenly Betty remembered the back stairway and all the piles of boxes and excelsior on Mary Jane's back stairway and she called out the end of the song—"because it was her moving day!" ...
— Mary Jane's City Home • Clara Ingram Judson
... with her search, Lucy returned to the house, and there found Deborah ironing at the long table in the hall, and crooning away her one dismal song ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nurse. It employs one maid of all work, who helps the housewife wherever help is needed, whether it is in the kitchen or the nursery. The mother spends her time with her children, playing with them when she has leisure, cooking and ironing and saving for them, and for her husband all through her busy day. Modern Germans like to tell you that young women no longer devote themselves to these simple duties, but if you use your eyes you will see that most women do their work as faithfully as ever. There ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... be good and help me with the little boys, won't you, Miss Hoodie dear?" said Martin. "There's some ironing I do want to get done for your Mamma this afternoon, if I could leave you three alone ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... rapidly away from the front, the housemaid answered merely by moving sighs. The laundress reasoned from past experience that the font had gone dry, and suddenly remembered that she was promised to help with the Bowers's heavy ironing. This was at a quarter ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... process, and also to dispense with the press papers. This is the main purpose of the machine we now illustrate in section, in which the pressing is done continuously by what may be termed a species of ironing. The machine consists of a central hollow cylinder, C, three-quarters of the circumference of which is covered by the hollow boxes, M, heated by steam through the pipes shown, and which are mounted upon the levers, BB', whose fulcra are at bb. By means of the hand-wheel, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... not sit up washing and ironing all night again. She ought to have help in her sympathy and labors for the poor fugitives, and, I should think there are many there who ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... at best," she replied, "for a poor woman, with four children to provide for, to get along, if she has to depend upon washing and ironing for a living. But when so many neglect to pay ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... could teach her no more. In the laundry the good-natured Irish woman who presided over that department of household economy gave her always so warm a welcome that the child came to think of the faithful woman as one of her choicest friends. Working with her over a little ironing board, Barbara quickly became expert in all the finer and more delicate operation of her art, or as ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... dive for a moment into a Chinese wash-cellar. "John" does three-fourths of the washing of California. His lavatories are on every street. "Hip Tee, Washing and Ironing," says the sign, evidently the first production of an amateur in lettering. Two doors above is the establishment of Tong Wash—two below, that of Hi Sing. Hip Tee and five assistants are busy ironing. The odor is a trinity of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... her home and gave her a bran mash. Then we turned to our work in the house while the men sat and smoked and spat on the veranda, discussing the drought for an hour, at the end of which time they went to help someone else with their stock. I made up the fire and we continued our ironing, which had been interrupted some hours before. It was hot unpleasant work on such a day. We were forced to keep the doors and windows closed on account of the wind and dust. We were hot and tired, and our feet ached so that we could scarcely stand ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... in the field when I was able. That was when I was in the country. When I came to the city I usually did washing and ironing. Now I can't do anything. All the people I used to work for is dead. There was one woman in particular. She was a good woman, too. I don't have any help at all now, except my son. He has a family of his own—wife and seven ...
— 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
... he remained in his chair by the window. It was six o'clock, supper time, when he entered the kitchen. Keziah, looking up from the ironing board, saw him. He was white and worn and grim, but he held out his hand ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and then strained. Muslins, to look clear, should be starched, and clapped dry, while the starch is hot, then folded in a very damp cloth, and suffered to remain in it till they become quite damp, before ironing them. If muslins are sprinkled, they are apt to look spotted. Garments that are not worn, when laid by, should not be starched, as it rots them when not exposed ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... determination he visited his lovely and all unconscious mistress the next day, but the fair lady was busy ironing.—"I shall see her again this evening," thought he, as he turned slowly towards the town; and see her that evening he did. They rambled out towards the cape, or promontory, almost invariably the scene of their summer evening walks; for lovers, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... her daughter, who cooks for a dentist's family, take much pride in their attractively furnished home. Julia was of pleasant manner and seemed anxious to tell all that she could. It is doubtful if Rosa made much progress with her ironing in an adjoining room, for every few minutes she came to the door to remind her mother of some incident that she had heard her ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... inch from the umbilicus, but with speedy attention the happiest results were attained. Twitchell has an example in the case of a young woman of seventeen, who was suddenly delivered of a child while ironing some clothes. The cord in this case was also ruptured, but the child sustained no injury. Taylor quotes the description of a child who died from an injury to the head caused by dropping from the mother at an unexpected time, while she was ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... to breakfast a little late. Katie, the general housework girl, had tied a small white apron over her generous gingham one, and was serving breakfast. From the kitchen came the dump of an iron, and cheerful singing. Sidney was ironing napkins. Mrs. Page, who had taken advantage of Harriet's tardiness to read the obituary column in ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... family where no other maid is kept,'" read Alexandra, "'a graduate will take entire charge of kitchen and dining room, go to market if required, do ordinary family washing and ironing, will clean bathroom daily, and will clean and sweep every other room in the house, and the halls, once thoroughly every week. She will be on hand to answer the door only one afternoon ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... alone, and with no more engrossing occupation than the ironing of some linen she ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... say he did, not in so many words, but that was what I thought he meant. It was like this, sir," continued Mrs. Brunton, as they stood face to face on the wet gravel: "just about this time yesterday I was busy ironing, when my nephew, the lad you used to send with letters, who's here again for his summer holidays, comes to me an' says, 'You're wanted.' So I went, and there was a young gentleman looking fit to drop. He'd a bag with him, and he'd walked all the way from Upthorpe station, same as I suppose ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... Bella returned home they found that Mary Erskine had made all the preparations necessary for the commencement of the school. She had made a desk for the two children by means of the ironing-board, which was a long and wide board, made very smooth on both sides. This board Mary Erskine placed across two chairs, having previously laid two blocks of wood upon the chairs in a line with the back side of the board, in such a manner as ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... for me to seek a position through an employment agency. I had become, you see, one of those characters I had read about in short stories dozens of times before—an unemployed girl in New York, even to the hall-bedroom, the handkerchiefs stuck on my window-pane in process of ironing, the water-bugs around the pipes in the bath-room. It was this consciousness of myself that made many of the hardships bearable—this and the grim determination not ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... a Medical Inspector in the army who was not a first rate judge of the art of folding and ironing a sheet or pillow-slip; of the particular tuck which brought out the outlines of the corners of a mattress, as seen through a counterpane; and of the art and mystery of cleaning a floor. It did seem as if ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... on the ironing-board, the white table underneath the window, in the old familiar manner of former days; many and many a time had he perched himself there to talk to her when he was young ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... urchins climb his eaves, And little watch-fires heap with leaves, And milky filberts hoard; And there his oldest daughter stands With downcast eyes and skilful hands Before her ironing-board. ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... on a chair a large woolen coverlet, which was used for the ironing-table; he seized it, and adroitly threw it over the head of Francois, who, in spite of all his efforts, finding himself entangled in its thick folds, could make no use of his arms. Then Nicholas threw himself upon him, and, with the aid of his mother, carried ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... brothers, sons of an ironing-woman, were apprentices in a foundry of the near-by Ronda. The younger passed his days in a continuous capering, indulging in death-defying leaps, climbing trees, walking on his hands and performing acrobatic stunts from all ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... my wife calls the cook's delight. It's an ironing-board on wash-days, a supper table at supper-time, and on the cook's reception days it can be turned ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... in the corner stirred again; And the carved dog, curled in his arms, awoke, Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke. It piled in a maze round the ironing-place, And there on the snowy table wide Stood a Chinese lady of high degree, With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face.... Yet she put away all form and pride, And laid her glimmering veil aside With a childlike smile ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... expected to gore somebody. There were no proper cupboards for their clothes; what cupboards there were either would not close at all, or burst open whenever anyone passed by them. There were no pots and pans; there was no copper in the washhouse, nor even an ironing-board in the maids' room. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... and wraped it up in a towel that was drying in front of the fire, and laid it on a bundle of clothes ready for ironing that was on the table. Then he went ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Picores's cup was almost empty her thundering voice came out to change the situation. "Did you ever see such a pair of sillies! Still mad, still mad! Well, well, the girls in the Market these days are not what they used to be! Once their faces are out of joint, there's no ironing them out again! Mad once, mad for always, eh! Couldn't be worse if they were tony folks up town! No, there's something wrong with the hearts of girls nowadays. And if you don't believe it just see ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... be supplied with two tubs, an ironing-table, an ironing-board, and a stove for the boiler and the irons. The ironing-board should be supported upon two "horses" of the height of the table. The table should be ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... sometimes happens, the husband began to drink, love grew colder, the necessities of the family hourly grew greater, poverty in all its hideousness came to curse the home once so happy. The poor, distracted wife and mother did all she could, by taking in washing and ironing, to prevent the starvation of her little ones. The husband through his bleared eyes imagined he could see that other men were too friendly to his wife. He charged her with unfaithfulness to the marriage vows. She denied the charge. Only incensed by this he would beat and mistreat her out of all ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... busying about, Sewing on buttons, tapes, and strings, Hanging the week's wet washing out Or ironing the children's things, Sweeping and dusting, cleaning grates, Scrubbing the dresser or the floors, Washing the greasy dinner plates, Scouring the brasses ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... rather stiffly ahead. This young daughter of hers, with her directness and her smiling ignoring of the small subterfuges of life, rather frightened her. The terrible honesty of youth! All these years of ironing the wrinkles out of life, of smoothing the difficulties between old Anthony and Howard, and now a third generation to contend with. A pitilessly frank and unconsciously cruel generation. She turned ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... school-room from nine to twelve in the forenoon and from one till four in the afternoon was that of any ordinary school, except that the girls who prepared the meals were excused earlier than the others. One day in the week was devoted to washing and ironing down on the river-bank and in the shade of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... exclusiveness of these scientific gentlemen. Professor Helgard discoursed most eloquently on co-operative housekeeping. As we listened to the many good reasons he gave for cooking, washing, and ironing on a large scale, we felt the women of the nation might be benefited ultimately by these weekly cogitations, if not permitted to enjoy ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... sorry, snappy case all day. The blow had fallen, and within a fort-night Tom would go to sea. This dismal fact depressed her not a little, and she snuffled over her ironing, and her voice grated worse than ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... dormitories, containing five hundred beds, were very lofty and airy. I saw handsome crucifixes in conspicuous places here, and holy pictures, also, all to remind the pupils of the spirit of devotion which they owed to God and his saints. We noticed men washing and ironing in the large laundry; no women were employed in the house. Here were several grand marble swimming basins for the boys, with large apparatuses for hot and cold water, splendid gymnasiums, forty or fifty feet long by thirty wide, with pillars painted sky blue, and supporting ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... guests to be entertained with free-handed hospitality. Store-room and smoke-house were filled to overflowing then, and there was a swarm of negro servants always in attendance. It hurt the faithful old mammy's pride to see one of her young mistress's daughters bending over the ironing-board, and to hear the other exclaiming over the fried chicken and frosted spice cake in the picnic basket, when such luxuries had once been their family's daily fare. She was their only servitor, now, coming once a ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... always say that of a woman with any figure to speak of," remarked Perry. "Unless she's as flat as an ironing board, somebody is sure to say she's vulgar. For my part I like shape," he concluded ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... sitting in the kitchen before a bowl of potato, eating. Close by, near the stove, Aglaia and Dashutka were sitting facing one another, spinning yarn. Between the stove and the table at which Matvey was sitting was stretched an ironing-board; on ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... you mean to say that our Sarah, daughter of the Reverend Samuel Blake, wilfully broke the Sabbath by ironing?" Concentrated horror ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs |
