"Sewing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... penetrating of argus-eyed policemen or sheriffs, can not see. Australia—is it not the land of gold? Who that has poached a pile does not gravitate there, as the needle to the pole? Of course, I do not mean the sewing-machine needle. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... morrow. Everybody worked till nightfall. While some of the men mended harness others repaired the frames and ironwork of the wagons. Them was much heating and hammering of iron and tightening of bolts and nuts. And I remember coming upon Laban, sitting cross-legged in the shade of a wagon and sewing away till nightfall on a new pair of moccasins. He was the only man in our train who wore moccasins and buckskin, and I have an impression that he had not belonged to our company when it left Arkansas. Also, he had neither wife, nor family, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... them to your puking sister and her child, hiding their heads and sewing their samplers at Machecoul. What more can you ask? Surely the young and fair are safe in such worthy society, even if they may chance to find ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... his airy flight from the precipice you mention had a parallel in the melancholy Jew who toppled from the monument. Were his limbs ever found? Then, the man who cures diseases by words is evidently an inspired tailor. Burton never affirmed that the act of sewing disqualified the practiser of it from being a fit organ for supernatural revelation. He never enters into such subjects. 'Tis the common uninspired tailor which he speaks of. Again the person who makes his smiles to be heard, is evidently a man under possession; a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... mine, but I want you to look at things as the world does. I do common work—carpenter's work, and am glad to get the chance of doing it, and to help you and Horace. Here we can only be common working people—you sewing for the shops and I working for a builder. That is all the people know, and all we want them to know, and I wish Horace could ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... of the San Francisco home were great; for there was always a large family, most of whom, on coming, were destitute of decent apparel, and, with scarcely an exception, all needed physical treatment, some permanently, so that we toiled incessantly either in the sewing-room, the sick-room, or the nursery, where were several dear little babies. Who does not love a baby? You can not imagine how attached we were to them, soon forgetting their unfortunate advent, and doing what we could to instruct and aid their untutored young mothers. The ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... for the wardrobe of her mistress, to assist her at her toilette, to draw her bath, to lay out her clothes and keep her room tidy. But she does not sweep or dust the room or make the bed—these are the duties of the chamber-maid. If she is an accomplished maid she will probably do a great deal of sewing, and perhaps she will massage her mistress' hair and manicure her nails. But these duties are not to he expected; the mistress who finds her maid is willing to do these things ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... bench, stitching away for dear life. He pursed his lips and screwed up his mouth into all sorts of odd shapes with the effort, for it was an effort. He was only eight, and you would scarcely have imagined him over six, as he sat there sewing like a real little tailor; only Paolo knew but one seam, and that a hard one. Yet he held the needle and felt the edge with it in quite a grown-up way, and pulled the thread just as far as his short arm would reach. His mother ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... sir! I'll just fetch a little sewing, and then I'll sit as long as you please. But you've caught cold: I saw you shivering, and you must have some gruel to drive ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... reading, writing, and copying Latin, as in the monasteries, as well as music, weaving and spinning, and needlework. Weaving and spinning had an obvious utilitarian purpose, and needlework, in addition to necessary sewing, was especially useful in the production of altar-cloths and sacred vestments. The copying and illuminating of manuscripts, music, and embroidering made a special appeal to women (R. 56), and some of the most beautifully ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... into the other side a minute," said Aunt Maria. "Eunice went to the sewing-meeting this afternoon, and I want to know what they put in that barrel for that minister out West. I don't believe they had enough to half fill it. Of all the things they sent the last time, there wasn't ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and placed in an upper room called the "hall," where Mr. Mitchell kept the chronometers, where the family sewing was done, and where the larger part of the books were kept,—a beautiful room, overlooking "the square," and a great gathering-place for all their young friends. When the piano was put in place, the sisters awaited the ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... is lighted. Moonlight streams in, lighting up the studio window. There is a fire in the stove. Bertha and the maid are discovered. Bertha is dressed in a negligee with lace. She is sewing on the Spanish costume. The maid ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... the other servants. He had not realized that Julie Genet was absent until Mrs. Whitney rang for her; he had supposed the maid was upstairs waiting upon either her or Miss Whitney. No, Julie was not quarrelsome; she was quiet, deeply engrossed in her own affairs, and spent much of her time sewing in Miss Whitney's sitting-room. He had heard that she was to have been married the previous December, but the war had taken her fiance back to the colors, and he had been killed in the ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... church has been revived, its membership increased to seventy-five, congregations large and growing, a nourishing Sunday-school and mission school, two preaching services on the Lord's day, and a vigorous Y.P.S.C.E.; a wide-awake mid-week service, a woman's missionary society, and a sewing-school for girls. The church edifice has been renovated at a cost of three hundred dollars, and a parsonage is being erected. For intelligence, Christian character and progressive work, this church is considered the best among colored people ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 48, No. 10, October, 1894 • Various
... weather, you know; so we must put up with it," said Mrs. Hill; "besides, I can mostly find some cool place about the house; I keep my sewing here on the porch, and, as I bake my bread or cook my dinner, manage to catch it up sometimes, and so keep from getting overheated; and then, too, I get a good many stitches taken in the course ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... forty degrees below zero in those far-away forest depths; and whatever other hardships Frank might be called upon to endure, it was very well settled in her mind that he should not suffer for lack of warm clothing. Accordingly, the knitting-needles and sewing-needles had been plied industriously from the day his going into the woods was decided upon; and now that the time for departure drew near, the result was to be seen in a chest filled with such thick warm stockings, shirts, mittens, and comforters, ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... not content with common jokes, such as sewing up the legs of Malachi's trousers while he slept, fixing his bunk, or putting explosives in his pipe—we aspired to some of the higher branches of the practical joker's art. It was well known that ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... Philip Sterling," said Ruth one day as the girls sat at their sewing. Ruth never embroidered, and never sewed when she could ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... sitting room or library, for there were bookcases against the walls, and a large writing table, holding books and writing material, stood directly beneath the chandelier, while on the sofa in one corner reposed a bit of women's sewing, where it had apparently been hastily dropped. A fireplace, black and gloomy, evidently unused for some time, yawned in a side wall, and above it hung a rifle and ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... above the dining-room was one of those pink-and-white jumbles that convention prescribes for debutantes. Garlands of pink roses festooned the paper, tied at intervals by enormous pink bows. Pink bows and ruffles smothered the dresser and sewing table, and pink and white cushions filled the window seat. Cotillion favors, old dance cards, theater programs, were pinned to the heavy pink and white curtains that shut out the sunlight. Among the lace pillows of the brass bed lay a languid, ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... says I to myself, in a supremely virtuous manner, "I shall not be beaten by this enervating existence here. I'll do something—if it's only sewing a seam." ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... hastily from her sewing with consternation in her eyes and asked, "Has the bishop really confirmed ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... songs of thanksgiving bursting forth from every grove. At the summit of a deeply shaded hill I found "Rydal Mount" cottage. I was shown, at once, into the sitting-room, where I found him with his wife, who sat sewing beside him. The old man rose and received me graciously. By his appearance I was somewhat startled. Instead of a grave recluse in scholastic black, whom I expected to see, I found an affable and lovable old man dressed in the roughest ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... said Eliza Melvyn, dropping her work in her lap, and looking up discontentedly to her mother; "why should not I be rich as well as Clara Payson? There she passes in her father's carriage, with her fine clothes, and haughty ways; while I sit here—sew—sewing—all day long. I don't see what use I am ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... was working in the garden; and little Billy, his youngest brother, who was but three years old, was carrying out the weeds as his brother plucked them up; Mary, the eldest daughter, was taking care of the baby; and Kitty, the second, sat sewing: whilst her brother Charles, a little boy of seven years of age, read the Bible aloud to her. They were all neat and clean, though dressed ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... halt Edgar applied himself steadily to the work of repairing the water-skins. The camp of the Heavies joined that of the Guards, and he felt that his danger of being recognized by Easton or Skinner was great; but sitting with a group of others sewing, with his face shaded by his helmet, the risk was very much less than if standing up or moving about the camp. At two o'clock in the afternoon the force paraded and moved off in columns of companies. The Heavy Camel Corps led, ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... close of October she put down her needlework with a little impatience. "I am tired of sewing, mother," she said, "and I will walk down to the Battery and get a breath of the sea. I shall ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... heat. From the kraals came at intervals the voice of little Paul in fluent Kafir; David smiled over his pipe and nodded to his wife once when the boy's voice was raised in a shout. Christina was sewing; her thoughts were on Katje, and ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... Loss of beauty. Loss of figure is, I fear, inseparable from childbearing especially if the woman works hard. We have always had servants, still my wife has always worked hard, at sewing, etc. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... of her sewing apron. "Hetty, tell Mam Gusta to set out some of the English biscuits and make tea." Then she turned back to face Drew. "Why, Drew? Rather—why not? They're your kin, and I think that Marianna feels it deeply that you came here and not ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... he 'has something in common with' AEschylus: the miserable poetaster! Yet another peers with the suspicious eye of a policeman into every contradiction, even into the shadow of every contradiction, of which Homer was guilty: he fritters away his life in tearing Homeric rags to tatters and sewing them together again, rags that he himself was the first to filch from the poet's kingly robe. A third feels ill at ease when examining all the mysterious and orgiastic sides of antiquity: he makes up his mind once and for all to let the enlightened Apollo alone pass without dispute, ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... there the happy youth would often stay till after midnight as if charmed to the spot, watching every motion of her hand, every look of her beloved face. It was a joy to see her teaching the child to read, or giving her lessons in sewing and knitting. On inquiry he had learnt that the little girl was a poor orphan, whom his fair maiden had charitably taken into the house, to ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... hurdle to finish the edges with two selected rods paired, Fig. 16. A pairing may be introduced in the middle, if desired, to give the hurdle extra endurance if it is to be used as a pavement or floor. If the hurdle is not to be used at once, or if it is to be transported, it must be sewed. The sewing is done with wire, twine, or withes at each end and in the middle, with stitches about 6 ins. long, as shown in Fig. 16. About 40 ft. of wire is required to sew one hurdle. No. 14 is about the right size, and a coil of 100 ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... the sewing-women to her relations. She was endearing in her ways with them, she watched their work, and made them those pretty speeches that seem like the flowers of childhood, and which her cousin had already silenced, for that gaunt woman loved ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... and health of each. The notion that light possesses a magnetizing power on steel was upset by Niepce de St. Victor in 1861. After removing every source of error, he "found it impossible to make one sewing needle, solarized for a very long time under the rays of light concentrated by a strong lens, attract another suspended by a hair, whether the light was white or colored by being made to pass through ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... her hand did not tremble, nor did the thread deflect a hair's-breadth from the straight line. The young mother alone seemed to be moved by some faint disturbance. "Hush!" she said, "is he waking?"—looking towards the cradle. But as the baby made no further sound, she too, returned to her sewing; and they sat bending their heads over their work round the table, and continued their talk. The room was very comfortable, bright, and warm, as Lady Mary had liked all her rooms to be. The warm firelight danced ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... was that turning obediently into the orchard, and looking about, Bellew presently espied a little, bright-eyed old lady who sat beneath the shadow of "King Arthur" with a rustic table beside her upon which stood a basket of sewing. Now, as he went, he chanced to spy a ball of worsted that had fallen by the way, and stooping, therefore, he picked it up, while she watched him with ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... Bah! Young man, you've been dissipating. That expense account turned your head. You've been blowing in our money on your friends and you've let your customers go. If you can't hold the railroad business we'll get some fellow who can. Cut out your sewing-circle wine suppers and your box parties to the North Shore debutantes and get busy. You've got a week to make good. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... objection to art," Mrs. Burtwell was wont to explain in a deprecatory tone; "only we should have preferred to have Madge graduate first, before devoting herself to a mere accomplishment. It seems a little like putting the trimming on a dress before sewing the seams up," she would add; "I did it once when I was a girl, and the dress always had ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... and as he waited, listening intently, he became aware of the monotonous hum of a sewing-machine coming through a ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... garden or the fields to gather fruits or vegetables, I was constantly influenced to be diligent, and to make haste and gather all I could, so that on our return home I might receive the plaudit, "Well done, good and faithful child." So it was in knitting and sewing. That I might be able to accomplish more and more each day, I would often induce one or more of my sisters to strive with me, to see which could do the most in ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... just the contrary; we are compelled not to make a living. Look at me: I can cook, but I must not cook; I am skillful with the needle, but I must not take in sewing; I could keep accounts; I could nurse the sick; but I must not. I could be a confectioner, a milliner, a dressmaker, a vest-maker, a cleaner of gloves and laces, a dyer, a bird-seller, a mattress-maker, an upholsterer, a ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... important than the change in the personnel of labor were the new machines of the day. During the fifteen years previous to the war American ingenuity had reached a high point. Such inventions as the sewing machine and the horse-reaper date in their practical forms from that period, and both of these helped the North to fight the war. Their further improvement, and the extension of the principles involved to many new forms of machinery, sprang from the pressing need to make up for the loss ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... while, girls, if you please," said Alice, "till I just tell you what I want to have done. In the first place, I think it will be so pleasant to form a sewing Society, to meet on Saturday afternoons, and make bags and needle-cases and collars and many other things to sell; and I know my father will be delighted to have us put a box, with these things, in his store. Then, while we sew, I propose that ...
— Self-Denial - or, Alice Wood, and Her Missionary Society • American Sunday-School Union
... far end that gave, as Julia afterward learned, on a side street. An upright piano was on the stage, and at one side a flight of three or four steps led down to the hall. The main floor was broken by tables and benches, a hundred sewing bags of blue linen hung on numbered hooks on the wall, and at the far end there were two deep closets for kindergarten materials and ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... which they become accustomed to in this watery country. They are ready to help their husbands in any servile work, as planting, when the season of the weather requires expedition; pride seldom banishing good housewifery. The girls are not bred up to the wheel and sewing only, but the dairy and the affairs of the house they are very well acquainted withal; so that you shall see them, whilst very young, manage their business with a great deal of conduct and alacrity. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... prepared salt pork—there were whole cellars full of it, built up in great towers to the ceiling. In yet other rooms they were putting up meats in boxes and barrels, and wrapping hams and bacon in oiled paper, sealing and labeling and sewing them. From the doors of these rooms went men with loaded trucks, to the platform where freight cars were waiting to be filled; and one went out there and realized with a start that he had come at last to the ground ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful," agreed Anne. "My little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and I sit at its window and feast my eyes. The colors and shadows are never the same ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... people, with never a thought of self-pity or self-praise. By day and by night she labored for her husband and family and for her people, for she thought them hers. She taught the women how to adorn their rude homes, gathered them into Bible classes and sewing circles, where she read and talked and wrought and prayed with them till they grew to adore her as a saint, and to trust her as a leader and friend, and to be a little like her. And not the women ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... disposing of both with a wave of her two hands. "The one means endless sweeping and baking; the other means sewing societies, and silly gossip over clothes, ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... range of stores, as well as the present court-yard, was laid out in grass-plats overshadowed by trees and bordered by a wrought-iron fence. Now the old aristocratic edifice hides its time-worn visage behind an upstart modern building; at one of the back windows I observed some pretty tailoresses sewing and chatting and laughing, with now and then a careless glance toward the balcony. Descending thence, we again entered the bar-room, where the elderly gentleman above mentioned—the smack of whose lips had spoken ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... seclusion which enveloped the women of the Hawthorne household when this note was opened and read. Squirrels aroused, owls awakened, foxes startled, would have sympathized. Louisa, the only really active member of the trio, wonderfully deft in finest sewing and embroidery, generously willing to labor for all the relatives when illness required, may not have felt faint or fierce. But Mrs. Hawthorne, even in the covert of her chamber, where she chiefly resided, no doubt drew back; and Elizabeth's beautiful eyes must have shone superbly. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... to hear we might move that day, and must hold ourselves in readiness. We all much wanted to buy things, but there was no help for it. Had a field-day at button-sewing and letter-writing. At eleven there was harness-cleaning, and I was sadly regarding a small remnant of dubbin and my dusty girths and leathers, when the order came for "boot and saddle," and that little job was off. In the end we did not start till three, and marched with the ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... folded up her sewing, "is often a very good principle to go on. So, children, off to bed with you, and another evening we will learn ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... she have concluded we can try it at least; and Stephen is not to know any thing about it until next April, when I am to go. We must both of us study very hard this winter, and I shall have such a deal of sewing to do." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... to have a last look at the strong old face we had known so long. The sailmaker was sewing him up in the clew of an old topsail, a sailorly shroud that Martin would have chosen. The office was done gently and soberly, as a shipmate has a right to expect. A few pieces of old chain were put in to weight him down, all ship-shape and sailor-fashion, and when it was done ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... for a walk after that, and coming back with a bored air stood on the hearthrug in the living-room and watched Miss Rose sewing. ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... any brains. Why we think a deformed person or a hunchback clever if he says something we might say. Of course the other senses are more. Embroider. Plait baskets. People ought to help. Workbasket I could buy for Molly's birthday. Hates sewing. Might take an objection. Dark ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... toward her with almost indecorous rapidity. Lean over the rail for a minute with me, and watch the freight being unloaded into one of these bobbing little craft. The hatch of the steamer is opened, a most unmusical winch commences operations—and a sewing machine emerges de profundis. This is swung giddily out over the sea by the crane and dropped on the thwarts of the waiting punt. One shudders to think of the probably fatal shock received by the vertebrae of that machine. One's sympathies, however, are almost immediately enlisted ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... nibble round the brule," continued Yankee, nodding his head toward his sorrel horse. "Don't think I will do much drivin' machine business. Rather slow." Yankee spent the summer months selling sewing-machines and new patent churns. ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... the Sewing Machine Girl. In the flesh. And walking across the slippery dance floor with her French heeled patent leathers wiggling under her. Bertha's the doodles. This is the way she stood at the piano at Sadie's party. This is the way she smiled at the errand boys and counter jumpers at Sadie's party. This ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... house, like a covered gallery: the interior sometimes neat and almost elegant in its bareness, the sleeping space divided off by an endlong coaming, some bright raiment perhaps hanging from a nail, and a lamp and one of White's sewing-machines, the only marks of civilisation. On the outside, at one end of the terrace, burns the cooking-fire under a shed; at the other there is perhaps a pen for pigs; the remainder is the evening lounge and al fresco banquet-hall of the inhabitants. To some houses water is brought ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all were at work, and all were eager; the servants contended for the honor of going with their master; the women flocked to the house to assist in the work of preparation, cutting out and making under-clothes, knitting socks, picking lint, preparing bandages, and sewing on uniforms; for many of the men who had enlisted were of the poorest class, far too poor to furnish anything themselves, and their equipment had to be contributed mainly by wealthier neighbors. ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... put on a pair of slippers that had a faded splendor about them, and went up to her bedroom. Here she hesitated for some time between the sewing-machine and her knitting-needles, but finally settled upon the latter, and a pair of socks for her husband which she had begun a year ago. But she presently despaired of finishing them before he returned, three hours hence, and so applied herself ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... looked as if there was nothing to be done with all those laboriously acquired bunches of rosebuds; for it was clearly out of the question to use them as the decoration for any costume, and idle to think of sewing them back into the snipped and gashed curtains. She looked at the purple skirt and coat that hungered for their flowers, and then she looked at Janet. Janet was a short, roundabout person; it was ill-naturedly supposed ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... hard to find in all Northumberland or in all England. Not distant would they be, too, from good company, for away to the north across the Tyne, in a mighty cavern in the rock—below what once was the castle of Sewing Shields—does not local tradition tell that Arthur and his knights lie asleep, waiting the inevitable day when England's dire need shall bring them again to life, to strike a blow for the land they loved. ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... out of sight, the little girls skipped and climbed, and wee Walter was carried by nurse up stairs into the nursery; and Kitty said, "Now, Mary, you can just go on with your sewing; you needn't mind us a bit. I'm going to take care of the ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow
... not return with her, and when I went into the garden five minutes later, Louis also had vanished. Save for two women who sat sewing at an upper window, the house seemed to be deserted. Not a sound broke the afternoon stillness of room or garden, and yet I felt that more was happening in this silence than appeared on the surface. I begin to grow curious—suspicious, ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... one of the Lichfield balls, he came in so late that everybody inquired the reason. He said he had been waiting for his tailor while he was sewing the buttons on his etceteras. Each of these buttons contained the picture of a French beauty, and he had the tailor in his room while his hair was being dressed in order to tell him which to place nearest ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... sisters dear! O men with mothers and wives! It is no linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives! Stitch! stitch! stitch, In poverty, hunger, and dirt,— Sewing at once, with a double thread, A shroud as well as ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... home at about one in the morning; Hortense had expected him ever since half-past nine. From half-past nine till ten she had listened to the passing carriages, telling herself that never before had her husband come in so late from dining with Florent and Chanor. She sat sewing by the child's cot, for she had begun to save a needlewoman's pay for the day by doing the mending herself.—From ten till half-past, a suspicion crossed her mind; ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... because you were unable to defend yourselves and no one in Port Agnew would defend you, merely hastened my visit. I couldn't in decency come any earlier; could I, Nan? It's just half after eight. And if you're going to keep me standing at the gate, as if I were a sewing-machine agent instead of a very old friend, I may conclude to take offense and regret ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... careless and free, Sewing as long as her eyes could see; Then smoothed her work, and folded it right, And said ...
— Baby Chatterbox • Anonymous
... sewing or the evening paper, perhaps, would check the girl's impulse to follow. "Don't chase after your father, Jane; he's got enough things to bother him already." So that, except for the occasional charitable moment when Jane, unimpeded, ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... his robes, his robes of green, His purple vest—'twas my awn sewing: Ah! wretched me! I little, little kenn'd He was in these to meet ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... known she would be! There was a gold crest to every exquisite, warm wave of her bronze hair; her level eyebrows were about five shades darker, and her curled-up eye-lashes darker still, where she sat with her head bent over some sort of sewing. And even before she looked up and I saw her eyes, the beauty of her caught me at my heart. I had never thought even my dream girl could be as lovely as she was. But there was more to her face than beauty. It was so young and sweet and gay, and—when ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... will show you the girl and you may talk with her yourselves." We gathered from the girl that she was a respectable widow, the mother of two children, living with her parents not far from Hong Kong on the mainland. As they were very poor, she went to Hong Kong to work at sewing to help support the family. An acquaintance there told her that she could earn as much as thirty dollars a month at sewing in California, and he could secure her passage for her at economical cost. She returned to her home and consulted ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... know you wouldn't do such a thing," returned his aunt. "Here, little dog, I'll cut it off for you," and she took her scissors out of her apron pocket, for she had been sewing just before coming out to look at the lemonade stand. "I'll cut it off for you," said ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... a detached air, as though speaking of a matter in China: "Well, it ain't any more than what he should. She was awful good to him when he was little and his father got so sick. I guess 'Niram wouldn't ha' had much to eat if she hadn't ha' gone out sewing to earn it for him and Mr. Purdon." She added firmly, after a moment's pause, "No, ma'am, I don't guess it's any more than what 'Niram had ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... is the day I look forward to! When you and I can build sewing-machines instead of battle-ships, harvesters of crops instead of harvesters of men, plow-shares and telephones, schools and colleges, printing-presses and paper! When our merchant marine shall ply the great Pellucidarian seas, and cargoes of silks and typewriters and books shall forge their ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... colonies they found that every house had been looted and everything of value taken, sewing machines and furniture ruthlessly smashed up and lying around as debris, while house organs, which were to be found in nearly every Mormon home, were heaps of kindling wood. The carcasses of dead animals lay about the streets, doors and windows were smashed in, stores gutted ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... the distinction to George. As a matter of fact, with our unkempt hair and beards and our rags, we now formed as tough looking a party of tramps as ever "came down the pike." That night in camp I cut up my canvas leggings and used pieces of the canvas to rebottom my moccasins, sewing it on with ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... been sewing drops her work to shrug one rounded shoulder as though she were cold, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... must promise her, which she had thought out while she sat sewing at home, for she thought of so much then. It was, that when I became a student, I should give her a gold engagement ring with the inscription "David and Susanna" on one half of the inside, and on the other half there should be "like David and Jonathan." ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... overboard; in a head sea she pounded until one feared for her safety; in smooth water, full steam ahead, she could snap off seventeen knots. She had a twenty-foot launch, equal to fourteen knots, that made no more noise than a sewing machine. Altogether there were worse as well as better boats upon the sea ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... book, and are immediately in the midst of scenes which have an indescribable familiarity. We have a confused sense of having met these people before. Certainly they have a strong family-likeness to denizens of modern novels. The sewing-circles and small-talk savor of the cheap wit of Widow Bedott. Jutnapore must have descended in a right line from Borrioboola-Gha. The traditional spinsters with their "withered bosoms" march in four abreast. The hereditary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... assistance. The right view, he maintains, is altogether opposed to this; parentage is a public service and a public duty; a good mother is the most precious type of common individual a community can have, and to let a woman on the one hand earn a living as we do, by sewing tennis-balls or making cardboard boxes or calico, and on the other, not simply not to pay her, but to impoverish her because she bears and makes sacrifices to rear children, is the most irrational ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... cushion of the sofa. The tail of the agonized reptile flung wildly in the air and flapped on the arched back of the imperturbable tigress. The whiskered muzzle of Stoffles dropped quietly, and her teeth met once, twice, thrice, like the needle and hook of a sewing-machine, in the neck of the Blue Dryad; and when, after much deliberation, she let it go, the beast fell into a limp tangle on ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... inscription, LABAKAN, MERCHANT TAILOR, he sat down and began with the needle and thread he had found in the chest, to mend the coat which his master had so shockingly torn. He was called off from his work, but on returning to it, what a wonderful sight met his eyes! The needle was sewing industriously away, without being touched by any one; it took fine, elegant stitches, such as Labakan himself had never made even in his most ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... to know where he is?" replied Mark, looking sly. "However, as you can't stop him now, I'll tell you. He is just about this time sewing up Briggs's coat-sleeves, putting copperas into his water jug, and powdered galls on his towel, and making various other little returns for this ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... come to Mr Lacey's quarters this morning. I was sewing on buttons in the next room, and couldn't help hearing something about odds; and that set me up sharp, for I knows what ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... so, then. Somebody might overhear you and think it was queer. Miranda Joy is in the south parlour sewing, you know." ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... afternoon, Mr. Chrysler found her sitting, book and sewing on her lap and only a rosary about her neck to relieve the ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... for the family had just received in a box-case a sewing-machine—a real English sewing-machine. A "traveller" had been round even to this sequestered spot, possessed of sufficient eloquence to persuade the farmer to buy his goods, and it certainly did seem remarkable that in such a primitive homestead, with its spinning-wheel and hand-loom in ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... fellers will see that they have their hands full if they tackle that job," and his eyes glanced proudly around the little circle of men, who had gathered close about him while he was performing his interesting little feat in sewing. ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... and light and firm. Very soon she had spun the first shift, which was for her own wedding. She wove and cut it out at once, hoping that the Count would not force her to begin the other. Just as she had finished sewing it, Burchard ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... difference between all these grades, or make out the reason for them, she was for her part convinced that not even the colonel himself, certainly not that fat Major Heavysterne, could be grander, or handsomer, or more important than her William. So I forgave her for sewing on my chevrons upside down, although it was at the time an infliction grievous to be born, inasmuch as the fussy little quartermaster-sergeant was thereby enabled to get a day's start of in the admiration and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... several disappointments, Christie decided that her education was too old-fashioned for the city, and gave up the idea of teaching. Sewing she resolved not to try till every thing else failed; and, after a few more attempts to get writing to do, she said to herself, in a fit of humility and good sense: "I'll begin at the beginning, and work my way up. I'll put my pride in my pocket, and go out to service. Housework I like, and ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... in her lower room, sewing by the light of a weaver's oil-lamp which hung from a string fastened to the mantel-piece. The place was very bare. Few of the little ornaments that usually decorate even a poor home remained, and the good woman's eyes were red with recent crying. The loom in the upper part of the house ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... all these things. In front of their cottage grew an under-sized ash; and on summer afternoons she would bring out a chair on the grass-plot and sit down with her sewing. Captain Hagberd, in his canvas suit, leaned on a spade. He dug every day in his front plot. He turned it over and over several times every year, but was not going to plant anything "just ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad |
