"Housework" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... risen a little before the sun the next morning, for she was downstairs about five o'clock. So was Seth, for, through Lisbeth's obstinate refusal to have any woman-helper in the house, he had learned to make himself, as Adam said, "very handy in the housework," that he might save his mother from too great weariness; on which ground I hope you will not think him unmanly, any more than you can have thought the gallant Colonel Bath unmanly when he made the gruel for ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the table-d'hote dinner runs up to over twenty-two dollars apiece, so with my half of the rent—eighteen dollars—I'd have less than nothing left out of my salary to pay my share of the groceries for all the breakfasts and luncheons. You see you'd not only be doing all the housework and cooking, but you'd be paying more of the ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... busy, happy life, only I am, perhaps, working a little too hard. What with my scholars, the extra amount of housework Martha contrives to get out of me, the practicing I must keep up if I am to teach, and the many steps I have to take, I have not only no idle moments, but none too many for recreation. Ernest is so busy himself that ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... the house for her handled mop. She looked first in the parlor, and then in the front hall; but at last she found it in the wash-room. She was very sly about it, for she was not sure Ruthie would approve of this kind of housework. Then Charlie tugged out a pail of water, and dipped in the mop; and between them both they thrust it through the opening of the pen, upon piggy's back. But the dirty creature did not love clean water. When he felt the mop coming down, ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... relative to serve as a menial until the debt should be paid. The pawned persons "were treated as members of the creditor's family and never exposed to harsh usage." The effect of interference by the English was that the wives and daughters of the great men suddenly had to do all the housework. "Debtor and creditor lost confidence in each other."[701] "There is a detestable and actual slavery in these hills, which is now only carried on by independent tribes, beyond English jurisdiction. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... soap suds), so enthralled had she become with the summer plan. If her parents could be persuaded to allow her to stay in camp with the girls during the summer, why then surely she need not be bothered with having to take exercise and help with the housework, as her mother insisted, she could simply give up all her time to her drawing and painting. You see Eleanor, like a good many other girls, did not at once grasp the meaning of the Camp ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... we could, to bear a strand of grotesque beads, or a handful of brazen gauds, and traffic them for some sable maid with crisp locks, whom, uncoffling from the captive train beside the desert, we should make to do our general housework forever, through the right of lawful purchase. But we knew that this was impossible, and that if we desired colored help we must seek it at the intelligence office, which is in one of those streets chiefly inhabited by the orphaned children ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... not so strong as formerly, and of late the toil of the farm taxed her endurance. There was milking, sewing, the housework, and the care of the chickens; enough to keep ten pairs of hands busy, let alone one. Oh, Lucy should ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... when she came away no notion of improving her acquaintance with Miss Anastasia; but the supper, and the breakfast and the dinner of the next day, with all the nameless and almost numberless duties of housework that filled up the time between, wrought her to a very strong sense of the necessity of having some kind of "help" soon. Mrs. Rossitur wearied herself excessively with doing very little, and then looked ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... forenoon is long; it's ten to one that all the so-called morning work is over, and you have leisure for an hour's sewing or reading before it is time to start the dinner preparations. By two o'clock your housework is done, and you have the long afternoon for books, needlework, or drawing,—for perhaps there is among you one with a gift at her pencil. Perhaps one of you reads aloud while the others sew, and you manage in that way ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... bad for both of us!" Jenny did not think so really; but she said it. She thought Emmy had the bread and butter pudding nature, and that she did not greatly care what she ate as long as it was not too fattening. Jenny thought of Emmy as born for housework and cooking—of stew and bread puddings. For herself she had dreamed a nobler destiny, a destiny of romance, of delicious unknown things, romantic and indescribably exciting. She was to have the adventures, because she needed them. Emmy didn't need ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... The housework had coarsened the mother's hands. Her nose had lost its shape and her temples had fallen in. Constant stooping over the kitchen range had made her a little round-shouldered. Father and mother met only at meals and at night. They did not ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... ago I was so run down that I could not spank the baby. After taking three bottles of your Elegant Elixir I am now able to thrash my husband in addition to my other housework. God bless you!" ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... taken the cottage a mile outside the sleepy little town. He had gone there in the first place because it was far removed from everyone and everything he knew, and in some ways the experiment had proved a success. The deaf old woman who came in to do his cooking and housework worried him little, and apparently did not gossip about his actions or his habits; whilst the three rooms he had furnished were more ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... to thinkin' of her; in my great affliction she Was sich a comfert to us, and so kind and neighberly,— She'd come, and leave her housework, fer to he'p out little Jane, And talk of her own mother 'at she'd never see again— Maybe sometimes cry together—though, fer the most part she Would have the child so riconciled and happy-like 'at we Felt lonesomer 'n ever when she'd put ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... could make it. The carpet was as crumbless and lintless as if meals were never taken there, nor work seen; and yet a little table ready set for dinner forbade the one conclusion, and a huge basket of naperies in one corner showed that Miss Janet's industry did not spend itself in housework alone. Before the fire stood a pretty good-sized kettle, and a very appetizing smell came from it to Ellen's nose. In spite of sorrow and anxiety, her ride had made her hungry. It was not without pleasure that she saw her kind hostess arm herself with a deep plate and a tin dipper, and carefully ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the following days; her talks, her manners, everything changed. She took interest in the housework, went to church regularly, and looked after ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... tale, which she translated. I told her how I had left my own country, intent on extending my knowledge and gaining my bread; how I was ready to turn my hand to any useful thing, provided it was not wrong or degrading: how I would be a child's nurse or a lady's-maid, and would not refuse even housework adapted to my strength. Madame heard this; and questioning her countenance, I almost thought the tale won ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... not be best for me to have a woman in the house with Zoe? Mrs. Engle knew of a widow about fifty whose husband had been killed in the War of 1812. And I got her, a Mrs. Brown. Zoe was now free of the housework. She had a companion when I was away on my work about the farm. And I felt relieved. But my mind and heart were full of problems. There was always Zoe! There was always Lamborn, skulking in the shadows of my speculations. How would I unravel this ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... Amelia finished her housework by nine o'clock, and then sat down in her low rocker by the south window, sewing in thrifty haste. The sun fell hotly through the panes, and when she looked up, the glare met her eyes. She seemed to be sitting in a golden shower, and she liked ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... stools, knitted stockings, or drank out of glasses handed across the shoulder to them by their lords. Some of these women were clearly notable housewives, and I have no reason to suppose that they do not take their full share of the housework. Boys and girls came in and out, and got a portion of the dinner to consume where they thought best. Children went tottering about upon the red-brick floor, the playthings of those hulking fellows, who handled ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... of hers, which probably represented a good deal of looking into windows and pricing; and her gown of the cheapest material, drooping from her round shoulders, is the product of the poor dress-making skill of hands which show only too well who does all the housework at home. The children, a boy of four and a girl of seven, are in their best, too, with faces scrubbed till ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... that Nancy Ellen never knew: it was time for Kate to be starting away to school. Because it was so self-evident that she should have what the others had had, she said nothing about it until the time came; then she found her father determined that she should remain at home to do the housework, for no compensation other than her board and such clothes as she always had worn, her mother wholly in accord with him, and marvel of all, Nancy Ellen quite enthusiastic ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... that out," said Louis, indicating the tray which Rachel had drawn from concealment under the Chesterfield, and which was now loaded. Mrs. Maldon employed an old and valued charwoman in the mornings. Rachel accomplished all the rest of the housework herself, including cookery, and she accomplished it with the stylistic smartness of a ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... a stranger come in and do my housework," he objected. "I can't, you know, though I appreciate your kindness all ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was born in Centerville. New York, in 1835 and began writing verse at the age of seventeen. Much as she has written, yet writing was only a pastime. She never let it interfere with her housework. Thoroughly practical, she did all her own work, just because she loved to do it. Her flowers of which she had many, in doors and out, resulted in many noble, inspiring ...
— Kansas Women in Literature • Nettie Garmer Barker
... realised what people would say. But I knew that would be silly. People can't run away and leave notes behind. But I can tell Anne I want to go to New York and get pupils. And I could get them. I can do housework, too." ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... revolution, your Majesty as you ought to know very well," replied the man; "and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. I'm glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Pennycuick name. The old maid, for her part, was enthusiastically devoted to the new sister-in-law, whom it was her joy to pet and coddle. "I can be of use to her," she tremblingly commended herself to her brother. "I can take the drudgery of the housework off her, and save her in the parish." "Well, perhaps so," said Mr Goldsworthy. And, sincerely desiring to endear himself to his aristocratic wife, he consented ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... about the factory, and what Mrs. Snawdor says about housework, and what somebody says about everything I start to do. Looks like being a nice ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Mrs. Gulick have here a boarding-school for native girls. They had nine pupils of various shades and sizes. Some of them seemed very bright and intelligent, and were quick and handy about their work. Beside their studies, they are beginning to learn to make their own clothes and to do housework. ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... back at midnight to lie down and catch what sleep they could before dawn waked them to another day of toil. Thursday evening was set for the event. On Wednesday the Lusk girls coming in to discuss, found Judith with shining eyes and crimson cheeks, attacking the simple housework of ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... This is why it is your duty, when you leave, not to allow yourself to be idle: not only because God expects you to bring your sheaves with you at the Last Day, but because your field cannot stand empty—if good grain is not there, weeds will be. And manual work—gardening or housework—gives more fresh air to the mind than anything else. If you ever, as Punch expresses it, "find your doll stuffed with sawdust," if life seems a disappointment, and you are a prey to foolish fancies, and have lost your spring, then try being really tired out in body ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... Prince Albert painted, sang, and read together. Those were happy days indeed for the young rulers of a kingdom. Each of their children had a garden. The Prince of Wales worked in a carpenter's shop, and the royal princesses learned housework in a kitchen and dairy prepared for them." This was a revelation to Lucille, who had been reared with little or nothing ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... do as they like, and indulge their individuality, but every true and womanly woman must take to the nutmeg grater and the O-Cedar Mop. It is also believed that in the good old days before woman suffrage was discussed, and when woman's clubs were unheard of, that all women adored housework, and simply pined for Monday morning to come to get at the weekly wash; that women cleaned house with rapture and cooked joyously. Yet there is a story told of one of the women of the old days, who arose at four o'clock in ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... he answered. "Mary is always busy with her housework and her flowers and the poor sick folks she's always a-looking after—just like her mother, if you remember. Charlie, he's working late to-day—some breakdown or something that's keeping him overtime. That brother of yours is a fine manager, Miss Helen, and," he added, with a faint ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... to quiver in that manner, Baron always insisted that they all rest. During such recesses they ate, played cards and helped June with the housework. The younger man was continually amazed by the calmness with which the girl faced their desperate situation. Clad in a blue smock which brought out the color of her eyes, she flitted about the apartment, manufacturing delicious meals out of canned ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West
... of New York, ss.—Mary Conway, being duly sworn, doth depose and say: I have lived with Mr. and Mrs. Haggerty, in the County Court-House, for over fourteen months, as cook; for about three or four months I did general housework; on Sunday morning, September 10th, I got out of bed with the child that slept with me, wanting to get up; I don't know whether it was half-past six or seven o'clock; Mrs. Haggerty came into the room in her night-dress; and said to me, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... be more and more difficult to induce girls to learn or practice housework. For the average woman this is still necessary, and the more advanced schools have taken it up. For the girl whom neither the home nor the school has been able to reach, Scouting offers a most successful and attractive ...
— The Girl Scouts Their History and Practice • Anonymous
... to school in order to take the results of their work home for the family meal, if a school lunch is not served or if they do not need a lunch. Give careful directions for washing the dishes and supervise the housework carefully. (See pages 52, 53, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... inkstand, locked her bookcase, and went at housework as if it were a five-barred gate; of course she missed the leap, but scrambled bravely through, and appeared much sobered by the exercise. Sally had departed to sit under a vine and fig-tree of her own, so Di ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... there being any disgrace connected with work of any sort—it never entered my head. From a child I had been taught that work was honorable, and especially for a woman housework and cooking were respectable and healthy service. So I had no pride whatever in the matter; it was only a question of finding the work, and I did not doubt my ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... of work is not so complete, for housework can be neglected, there are always neighbours and friends to listen to tales of woe and thus generate a very harmful self-pity, and women are not content to enumerate their woes, but demand the attention and ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... houses where he went to stay. By strict economy, however, Mrs Shepherd managed to make two ends meet. Except when she was too ill and had to call in a charwoman to help her with the heaviest part of the work, she undertook the entire housework herself: when times were hardest, she had even taken in a lodger, not thinking herself above cooking and taking up his dinner. She had noticed that her economies endeared her to the Major, and it was pleasant to please him. Hers ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... planting, reaping. In the afternoons he painted—painted until the sun got too low to afford the necessary light; then he went for his daily solitary walk through the woods and fields, coming back at dark. After supper he helped his wife with the housework, put the children to bed, and then sat and read ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... inconceivably quick, deft, and clean. One good man will do the work of two white servants, and do it better. Toy takes care of us absolutely. He cooks, serves, does the housework, and with it all manages to get off the latter part of the afternoon and nearly every evening. At first, with recollections of the rigidly defined "days off" of the East, I was a little inclined to look into this. I did look into it; but when I found all ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... to get relief from everything that tries you, as far as you can. Treat yourself like an invalid, as you are. Then change your way of life entirely: go out a good deal in the air, read, and talk, and sing, and play on the piano—you used to be a good player, I remember. Let the housework and the sewing be done by somebody else, except what you can do without a strain upon yourself. Then I should be a little careful about my dress, to have it becoming and all that, and I would invite in a little company once in a while, and go out in a sociable way a little, and try to ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... which,—unaltered since the days of its original building,— was vaulted high and heavily timbered, she went first into the kitchen to see Priscilla, who, assisted by a couple of strong rosy-cheeked girls, did all the housework and cooking of the farm. She found that personage rolling out pastry and ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... in primitive farce. Lawyer Pathelin tells his client of a trick to outwit the magistrate; the client employs the self-same trick to avoid paying the lawyer. A termagant of a wife insists upon her husband doing all the housework; she has put down each separate item on a "rota." Now let her fall into a copper, her husband will refuse to drag her out, for "that is not down on his 'rota.'" In modern literature we meet with hundreds ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... have any housework to do in the morning," Ma Briskow confessed, as they left the Ajax. "A hotel would spoil me ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... a very busy and quiet one for the four years following the May day when she made her choice. Study, exercise, housework, and many wholesome pleasures kept her a happy, hearty creature, yearly growing in womanly graces, yet always preserving the innocent freshness girls lose so soon when too early set upon the world's stage and given ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... messages, Tommy. It would be a great advantage to me to have someone I could send on a message without feeling I was interfering with the housework." ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... Say occasionally, but only between the periods of the attacks of fever. On such visits she would assist the patient, do the housework, and arrange the hides or covers for her. Say harboured a wish to consult her about her disease; but Shotaye studiously avoided any opportunity for confidential talk. One day, however, when the two were alone in the kitchen, and the invalid felt somewhat ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... not so fast! In a month or two, perhaps. But first must come other things outdoor things. Also housework." ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the sleek respectability of the well-to-do quarter. In those windows Ruth observed foreign-looking, idle women, not very clean, who had nothing to do after they had completed half an hour of slovenly housework in the morning. They watched their neighbors breathlessly. They peered out with the petty virulent curiosity of the workless at whatever passed in the streets below them. Fifty times a day they could be seen to lean far out on their fire-escapes ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... son. Plainly we have here no second husband; plainly we have the tolerated lover. Only, in the Marquesas, instead of carrying his lady's fan and mantle, he must turn his hand to do the husband's housework. ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a sigh; "now I will dry the dishes for you.... You didn't mention the fact, when you engaged me, that I was also expected to do general housework." ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... brother and sister. Edward Chapin was a man of twenty-six, with an old, wasted face,—and he was still going to school, studying for the ministry. His sister Annabelle kept house for him; that is to say, she did whatever housework was done. The brother supported himself and his sister by getting odd jobs from churches and religious societies; he "supplied" the pulpit when a minister was ill, did secretarial work for the college and the Young Men's Christian Association. Claude's ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... below and above, they only succeeded in unearthing Hippolyte. He came up from his bed looking just like that very clever Missing Link that was at Barnum's, do you remember?—the one that sometimes was an Irishwoman, and could do housework in a cage by itself. I don't know exactly what Hippolyte had on, but it ended up with a petticoat of red and black plaid, and a pair of grey linen trousers over his shoulders; his whiskers and hair were standing straight on end, and his shaved ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... seemed to see the factory of Spencer & Son. The long lines of men had vanished, and in their places were women, clear-eyed, dexterous and happy at escaping from the unpaid drudgery of housework. "It may come to that, too," she thought, ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... being out of the house except at meal time, there was to a certain degree, a cessation of hostilities. Nora gradually acquired some knowledge of housework. She learned to cook fairly well and always helped with the washing, rarely complaining of her aching arms and back. The only indication she had that she was making progress was that Gertie complained less. Praise, of course, ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... came with eyes dancing—it was to be an especial day—a fete—and the gods had smiled on her planning and given them perfect weather. Never such sunshine, such crystal air, such high-hung clouds! Breakfast over, they hurried about the miniature housework, and packed the kit for a long day's tramp. Then they started forth, the cat following, tail aloft. Beyond a dim peak, where the clove opens southward, by the side of a tiny lake they lunched and took their noonday rest. She watched the smoke curl up from ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... Women in Society. Parliamentary law. Games. Book-reviewing. Manuscript-reading for publishers. Library work. Teaching music and painting. Home study of professional housework. The unmarried daughter at home. The woman in business. Her relation to her employer. Securing an increase of salary. The woman of independent means. Her civic ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... "I ought to go, for the children's sake, if not for hers. Think of Cecie and the poor baby; and Lilian not ten years old, trying to do the housework! I can do so much ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... done, dried and replaced, she retired to her bedroom and turned her attention to her hands and nails, minutely solicitous, always in dread of the effects of housework. ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... have left quite a blank in their lives, although they had often pretended to themselves and to each other that they hated housework. But now that Mother had no writing and no housework to do, she had time for lessons. And lessons the children had to do. However nice the person who is teaching you may be, lessons are lessons all the world over, and ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... am a reader of YOUNG PEOPLE, and like it very much. I am thirteen years old. My father is Register of Deeds for Coos County, and I help him. I can record ten deeds in a day. And I can cook and do all kinds of housework. ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Italian and Tasso, I am ashamed to tell you how slow I have been. Between company and housework and sewing I have my hands about full, and precious little time for reading and study. Still, I feel that I live a life of too much ease. I should love to spend the rest of my existence in the actual service of the Lord, without a question ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... said; but it was a dreadful thing for a woman to lose her liberty, especially when liberty brought so much idle time. "Why, girls, I have quilted and darned up every rag in the house. He will do half the housework himself; he is an everlasting Betty." She was cheerful, however, and helped Hepsey, as well as the rest ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... approached by a man who speaks her language and is immediately offered employment at good wages, with all expenses to the destination to be paid by the man. Most frequently laundry work is the bait held out, sometimes housework or employment in a candy shop ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... eddicated and learn seamstress; kase we doesn't want her to work lak we is," says the farmer. "I wish to help you plant this new industry, broom-making," writes Miss Susan B. Anthony, "because you are trying so earnestly to teach your girls other means of livelihood besides sewing, housework, and cooking." This is the problem we have been trying to solve at Tuskegee for over twenty years: What handiwork can we give our girls with their academic training that will better fit them to meet the demand for skilled teachers ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... then these squaws go to cookin' whenever they happen to think about it. Lord, but I'm hungry! Wish some good-lookin' squaw would get took with me and follow me off, for I sure hates cookin' and housework." ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... did not. Susanna had been hired to do the waiting and the dish-washing during Campbell's brief visit. It was I who hired her. If I had had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in the household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea. "Pity if I can't do housework for two folks," she declared. "I don't care if you can afford it. Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is a sinful extravagance." As Susanna's services had been already engaged for the weekend she ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a sudden spirit of rebellion. Why shouldn't she have some fun? She would enjoy herself! She wasn't going to go on like this, letting people in to the promenade, doing housework, practising typewriting. Why did some girls get everything, like Laura Temple, and others nothing? It was not fair. It ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... until the thrifty sempstress was counted well to do, and held in esteem according. Sometimes, when she got weary, and thought a change of labor would do her good, she would engage with some lucky dame to help do housework for a month or two. She was a famous hand at pickling, preserving, and making all manner of toothsome knick-knacks and dainties. Nor was she deficient in the pleasure walks of the culinary art. Betsey Pratt, the tavernkeeper's wife, a special crony of Statira's, used always to send for her whenever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... housework Ruth had developed a system that would have made a fortune for any man if applied in the same degree to his business. I learned a lot from her. Instead of going at her tasks in the haphazard fashion of most women or doing things just because her grandmother and her mother did them a certain way, ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... even mentioned. The efficient kitchen devised in such an interesting and clever way has no place in it. Its exclusive object is to suggest a satisfactory and workable solution along modern lines of how to get one's housework efficiently performed without ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... was makin' me? I'm paid to do the cookin' and housework in this house, and if I see fit to light in and boss things 'round a bit, it's my own business. Thank the Lord, I got manners enough to attend to it! How much coffee did you come over here ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have you pleasure from poems? Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a nomination and election? or with your wife and family? Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful maternal cares? These also flow onward to others—you and I fly onward, But in due time you and I shall take less interest ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... about it. The great sorrow has come upon you, and there's only one comfort—there are others. It falls upon all who try to get out of doing their own housework in New York. And I'll bet you were good enough to the last cook, too—only asked her for one night out a week, came to her meals promptly, didn't demand more than a fair living wage, and let her have the rest. Yes, of course you did. And you're going to let the next one have the best room ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... contrast to the women who tried to restrain her. They tried once or twice to thrust her back through the curtain, although clearly determined to do her no injury; but she held her ground easily. At a rough guess it was tennis and boating that had done more for her muscles than ever strenuous housework did for the Armenians. ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... for silver and tin. Or maybe you're dealing in unguents healing, or dye for the whiskers, or salve for the corns, or something that quickens egg-laying in chickens, or knobs for the cattle to wear on their horns. It's no use your talking, you'd better be walking, and let me go on with my housework, I think; you look dissipated, if truth must be stated, and if you had money you'd spend ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... Graham!" said my neighbour Mrs. Jones to me one day, "what shall I do for good help? I am almost worried out of my senses. I wish somebody would invent a machine to cook, wash, scrub, and do housework in general. What a blessing it would be! As for the whole tribe of flesh and blood domestics, they are not worth ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... sez, "No, Josiah, I can't go into that with all the rest I have to do, and it seems onreasonable in that minister to want wimmen to climb up onto pedestals when they have to do their own housework." ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... Old Tarwater was up and limping about the housework of the cabin, cooking and dish-washing for the five men of the creek. Genuine sourdoughs (pioneers) they were, tough and hard-bitten, who had been buried so deeply inside the Circle that they did not know there was a Klondike Strike. ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... gardening, the cooking, the housework, the clerical work—you don't do the laundry, too, do you?" ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... the rocky farm that the father and mother looked about them to see how they could add to it. Miranda Conwell turned to her needle and often sewed far into the night, making coats, neckties, any work she could obtain that would bring in a few dollars. She was never idle. The moment her housework was done, her needle was flying, and Russell had ever before him the picture of his patient mother, working, ever working, for the family good. The only time her hands rested was when she read her children ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... fact, where they could find any Bell-person kind enough to give them board and lodging. And every one was surprised at the increased loudness in the voices of these hospitable bells. For, of course, the Bell-people from the belfry did their best to help in the housework as polite guests should, and always added their voices to those of their hosts on all occasions when bell-talk was called for. And the seven big beautiful bells in the belfry were left hollow and dark and quite empty, except for the clappers who did not ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... I was a regular young rake before I was sent up to London to be Praddy's pupil. Apparently I seduced the housemaid or kitchenmaid—my father's establishment seems to consist of Nannie who is housekeeper and cook, and a maid who does housework and helps in the kitchen—and this unfortunate girl who fell a prey to my solicitations—or more likely misled me—afterwards gave birth to a child attributed either to my fatherhood or the gardener's. But the matter has been hushed up by a payment of twenty pounds ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... when Mrs. Mesurier was enjoying a little doze on the parlour sofa, and her three elder daughters were snatching an hour or two from housework—they had already left school—for a little private reading, the drowsy house would suddenly be awakened by one loud wooden ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... thus becomes an illegitimate wife who may separate from him when it pleases her. Some women contract this kind of union without being actually paid, simply for their maintenance, in return for which they do the housework. Here there is no actual sale of the body. The contract may be indefinite or limited. In such cases the effect of money on the attitude of the man toward his mistress is evident; his tone is generally less respectful toward paid mistresses than toward those ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... say that they shall stay. You say that in that case you'll go, which you do, having previously dismissed Dot and Dash. In consequence, everybody in this neighborhood cuts me, I am turned out of my business, and as the dates agree, I am believed to be the father of the child. Effie has the housework to do as well as the baby to look after, and in consequence, I am horribly neglected. The handle of the front door is not polished, and when an old friend comes down from London to see me, I have nothing to give him for ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... things inanimate still partook of men's dread at men's deeds. If you passed through the corridor and saw in the shadow of the wall that homeliest of instruments cast away and forgotten, you would smile at the slatternly housework. But if you knew that a corpse had been borne down those stairs to the left,—borne along those floors to that marriage-bed,—with the blood oozing and gushing and plashing below as the bearers passed with their burden, then straight that dead thing ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... help to us, Edgar; we told you so the other night. We could n't have Yung Lee unless you lived with us, and I could n't earn any money if I had to do all the housework." ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... means of a normal-school training or through familiarity with, and participation in, the domestic labor of a well-organized household. The working girl in a great city like New York does not have the advantage of either form of training. Her education, even at the best, is meager, and of housework she knows less than nothing. If she is city-born, it is safe to assume that she has never been taught how to sweep a room properly, nor how to cook the simplest meal wholesomely, nor how to make a garment that she would be willing to wear. She usually buys all her cheap ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... rank, conversed in pure Latin, and could even read and write. Aemilia, too, had become a great favourite in the house. The farmer's wife wondered at seeing one, with two slaves to wait upon her, active and busy, interested in all that went on, and eager to learn every detail of the housework. ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... a-trackin' up my floors," she said, "and a-askin' why you don' stop de circus from a-showin' nex' to de church and den a-cranin' afar necks out de winder, till I can't get no housework done." ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... herself, Catie's mother explained contentedly to her new neighbours, and she knew enough to come home, when she was hungry. Best let her go her ways, then. She would learn to be a little woman, all the sooner; and, in the meantime, it was a great deal easier to do the housework without having a child ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... connection with Shenac, for this winter was a very busy time with her. True, her work did not press upon her, so as to make her anxious or impatient, as it sometimes used to do in summer; but she was never idle. There were sewing and housework and a little wool-spinning, and much knitting of stockings and mittens for them all. The knitting was evening work, and, when Hamish was not reading aloud, Shenac's hands and eyes were busy with different matters. She read while she knitted, and enjoyed it greatly, much to her own ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... just warrant," the man went on, "that I've had more time to myself lately than you have, for all I've my living to earn as well as the housework." ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... both of them letting on to dust around in here—but that's because there's something they want to hear about and mix their gabble into. And they're always around at meals, for the same reason. But the fact is, we have to keep a young negro girl just to take care of them, and a negro woman to do the housework and help ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... new and sudden affection for housework, insisted on getting the supper. Mrs. Nelson, of course, could not consent to it on this the night of her banker's return; nobody's hands but her own must lay the cloth and mix the salad. But Lou was strangely insistent, and the upshot of the ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... wife—her maiden name was Harmony Vickers—was doing her part in that little brick house which the Colonel had taken Lane to see. There she worked and saved, treating her husband's money like a sacred fund to be treasured. When the colonel came home from his weekly trips, he helped in the housework, and nursed the boy through the croup at night, saving his wife where he could. It was long after success had begun to look their way before Mrs. Price would consent to move into the wooden cottage on a quiet cross street that the Colonel wanted to buy, or employ more than one servant. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... black nodded slowly, "Mr. John, she born mistress and I born slave; she can't help it—and they was good people too—all the people that owned me. They liked me too. I didn't have to work except holdin' horses and trainin' colts—and housework. They was always ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... you don't know how happy I am—not being away from those I love, but things are so different. I get up early and after breakfast I help Aunt Susan with the housework, for her maid is too old to go up and down stairs. I have learned to churn—to make butter and pot cheese as well. I dust, make my bed, and sweep my room. (Don't let mother see this. She may consider that I ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... can't help it." She was winking hard again against two fresh tears. "I spoiled two cakes this afternoon. Elice tried to show me how to make them; and I burned my finger"—she held up a swaddled member for inspection—"horribly. I just can't do this housework, Harry, just simply can't." ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... place. His lordship was described as being in delicate health. He lived in the strictest retirement—nobody was admitted to him, not even his own countrymen. A stupid old woman was discovered who did the housework at the palace, arriving in the morning and going away again at night. She had never seen the lost courier—she had never even seen Lord Montbarry, who was then confined to his room. Her ladyship, 'a most gracious and adorable ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins |
